Stig Östlund

söndag, november 06, 2011

På dagen ett år kvar till presidentvalet i USA


6 november 2011
På dagen ett år kvar till presidentvalet i USA

3 januari 2011
Republikansk nomineringsmöte i Iowa

10 januari 2011
Republikansk premiärval i New Hampshire

20 januari 2012
President Obama håller sitt State of Union-tal kring dettas datum

21 januari 2011
Premiärval i South Carolina

31 januari 2011
Primärval i Florida

6 mars 2011
"Super-tisdagen" med primärval i åtta delstater (Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Texas, Idaho, Vermont, Virginia, Colorado och tennessee)

27 augusti 2011 - 30 augusti 2012
Republikanerna utser sin kandidat vid konvent i Tampa, Florida

3 september 2011 - 6 september 2012
Demokraternas partikonvent i Charlotte, North Carolina. Barack Obama nomineras som partiets kandidat.

6 novermber 2011 Presidentval och val till representanthuset och en tredjedel av senaten.

ArXiv

http://arxiv.org/

The arXiv (pronounced "archive", as if the "X" were the Greek letter Chi, χ) is an archive for electronic preprints of scientific papers in the fields of mathematics, physics, astronomy, computer science, quantitative biology, statistics, and quantitative finance which can be accessed via the world wide web. In many fields of mathematics and physics, almost all scientific papers are self-archived on the arXiv. On 3 October 2008, arXiv.org passed the half-million article milestone, with roughly five thousand new e-prints added every month. The preprint archive turned 20 years old on 14 August 2011./Wikipedia

La Liga






I går

Mallorca - Sevilla  0-0; Betis - Málaga  0-0; Levante - Valencia 0-2 målen: 0-1 Javi Venta och 0-2 Tino Costa (bilden).
Rättvist resultat enligt spansk media. Därmed passerade Valencia Levante i tabellen.


Efter Valenciaderbyt i går.
Gissa vilket lag denne spelare
representerar.

De återstående matcherna i omgång nr 12 spelas idag:
R. Madrid - Osasuna kl 12.00
Granada - Racing kl. 16.00
Zaragoza - Sporting kl. 16.00
Rayo - R. Sociedad kl. 18.00
Espanyol - Villarreal kl. 18.00
Athletic - Barcelona kl. 20.00
Getafe - Atlético kl. 22.00

Världens bäste spelare leder skytteligan med sina13 mål gjorda .

A year from 2012 election, U.S. electorate is frustrated

One year out from the 2012 election, President Obama faces the most difficult reelection environment of any White House incumbent in two decades. But public disaffection with the party and a muddled battle for the GOP nomination leave open the possibility that Republicans will not be able to capitalize on the conditions that have put the president on the defensive. These conclusions are drawn from a Post-ABC News poll and from interviews with officials, strategists and advisers.
Geographically, the election will be won or lost in roughly a dozen states, beginning with most of those Obama took away from the Republicans in his first election but including a handful of traditional battlegrounds that may be more competitive than in 2008. Independents, as well as the coalition of African Americans, Latinos, younger voters and suburbanites that backed Obama in 2008, will again be key. /Washington Post

Read more >> http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-year-from-election-day-2012-a-dark-mood-awaits-obama-and-his-gop-rival/2011/11/04/gIQAaPa0qM_story.html?wpisrc=al_comboNP

Nils Schwartz: Bra tänkt av Skavlan

Det var klokt av redaktionen för "Skavlan" att inte ta med Carl Bildt och Linda Schibbye (hustrun till en av de fängslade journalisterna i Etiopien) i samma program.
Det var klokt av redaktionen för "Skavlan" att inte ta med Carl Bildt och Linda Schibbye i samma program. Jag tvivlar på att alla redaktioner skulle ha det goda omdömet – dagens tv-journalistik älskar konfrontationer. Sedan spelar det ingen roll om den ena parten är medietränad utrikesminister och den andra jobbar i mjölkkylen på Coop Forum.
Skavlan ställde bara en fråga om Bildt till Linda Schibbye. Hon kunde förstås inte svara annat än att hon hoppas att hans tidigare engagemang i Lundin Petroleum inte påverkar hans ambition att få de båda journalisterna fria. Fast hon hade inte fått veta någonting om vad UD gör i fallet. Nils Schwartz /EXPRESSEN

lördag, november 05, 2011

Good Night

Ham radio in the 21st century

Ham = Radio amateur
Ham radio today differs greatly from that of past years, but it still offers a fascinating way to explore electronics. Here’s a look at how it has changed and what it has to offer both old hands and newcomers alike.


Many of today’s experienced engineers got their start in electronics through amateur, or “ham,” radio. (Many theories exist over the origin of the term “ham radio,” but there is no consensus.) Over the years, however, the demands of these engineers’ work, families, and communities took precedence, and many hams lost interest and let their licenses lapse. Meanwhile, with the rise of personal communications and Internet connectivity in homes, many young engineers never needed ham radio as a way to explore electronics. They’ve missed the opportunity that this fascinating hobby presents.


The first wireless communicators were by definition all amateurs. Guglielmo Marconi himself, generally regarded as the inventor of radio, once famously remarked that he considered himself an amateur. In the early days of radio, commercial, government, and amateur stations shared the same spectrum, sending broadband spark-generated transmissions modulated by on/off keying using Morse code to convey messages. This practice resulted in a horrendous amount of interference among services until the government stepped in and assigned various services to specific bands.


Government and commercial stations were assigned the supposedly more useful, less-than-1500-kHz, long- and medium-wave spectrum, and the amateurs were banished to the less-than-200m wavelengths with frequencies higher than 1500 kHz. The experts of the day regarded these bands as worthless for long-distance communications.


The amateurs soon discovered that long-distance communications were actually easier at these frequencies. New allocations were then created to give government and commercial stations some of the “good” spectrum. However, a handful of slices of the spectrum were reserved for the amateurs. In the late 1960s, amateurs laid claim to all of the apparently useless frequencies higher than 30 GHz. Since then, as technology has marched on, other services have discovered that these frequencies are useful; amateurs currently enjoy exclusive rights to the frequencies greater than 300 GHz.


In the United States, Part 97 of Title 47 of the Code of Federal Regulations controls the amateur-radio service (Reference 1). It expresses the fundamental purpose of the amateur-radio service in the following principles: recognition and enhancement of the value of the amateur service to the public as a voluntary, noncommercial communication service, particularly with respect to providing emergency communications; continuation and extension of the amateur’s proven ability to contribute to the advancement of the radio art; encouragement and improvement of the amateur service through rules that provide for advancing skills in both the communications and the technical phases of the art; expansion of the reservoir within the amateur-radio service of trained operators, technicians, and electronics experts; and continuation and extension of the amateur’s unique ability to enhance international goodwill.


Licensing
Part 97 requires that amateur stations obtain licenses before they can transmit. The process for getting a ham-radio license has evolved over the years. Long ago, an applicant had to pass a rigorous technical exam that included drawing schematics from memory. The exams have changed considerably. All of the questions are now multiple-choice and cover technical, operating, and regulatory topics, and all of the questions and answers—both right and wrong—are available in the public domain. Furthermore, the governments of many countries—notably, the United States—have effectively outsourced the job of testing.



In the United States, volunteer examiners now administer the examinations. Volunteer-examiner coordinators arrange for testing sessions at convenient places and times (Figure 1). Upon successful completion of an exam by an applicant, the coordinators forward the required data to the Federal Communications Commission, which then issues licenses, with call signs—to identify each licensee and his or her location of license using a prefix and a suffix. In the United States, three classes of license now exist, each conveying a set of privileges, including permitted bands, modes, and power levels. Passing a more advanced exam entitles the licensee to more privileges.


The US amateur-licensing process no longer requires knowledge of Morse code for any class of license. This requirement has historically been a major impediment for many technically skilled individuals who were interested in ham radio but who could not or would not conquer Morse code. Ironically, the portions of the bands reserved for CW (continuous-wave) operation are busier than ever, as new licensees discover that narrow-band modes are more effective for weak-signal work than are wider-bandwidth modes, such as SSB (single-sideband) voice.
Many amateurs make contacts using voice modes, primarily SSB mode on HF and FM on VHF and UHF. The signal- processing capabilities of a soundcard-equipped PC that connects to an HF SSB or a VHF FM transceiver have driven the emergence of new modes. Even a modestly equipped PC has sufficient speed to generate and decode the FSK signals for conventional radio teletype. Experimenters have created modulation schemes and accompanying protocols, complete with forward-error correction, which enable direct keyboard-to-keyboard contacts even with low power and small antennas. The variety of FSK and PSK signals being used create unusual buzzing and chirping sounds when traveling to a speaker, and computers easily demodulate them and turn them into legible text. Some ingenious hams even use the PC’s signal-processing capabilities to emulate the signals that World War II-vintage mechanical text-to-radio systems, such as Hellschreiber, generated.


Some hams also engage in transmission of full-motion video signals—usually on VHF or UHF bands, on which sufficient bandwidth is available. Others transmit still pictures on HF, using voice-bandwidth signals and a PC. Data networks have also evolved using various systems, including TCP/IP.


21st century equipment
Licensed amateurs can transmit in bands in the LF, MF, HF, VHF, UHF, and microwave bands. With a good antenna, amateurs' equipment can achieve worldwide communications on many of these bands.




Most amateurs buy their equipment from stores. Years ago, the best-known brands were mostly US companies, such as EF Johnson and Heathkit and the now-defunct Collins, Hallicrafters, and Hammarlund. Ham radio in the 21st century figure 3Today, the most popular brands are mostly Japanese companies, including Icom, Kenwood, Yaesu, and Alinco (Figure 2). A few US manufacturers, such as Elecraft and FlexRadio, have entered the market in the past decade (Figure 3), and the first Chinese-made transceivers are beginning to


The technology used in ham equipment has evolved significantly. Most high-performance HF/VHF transceivers now use digital-signal-processing technology for at least some of the modulation, demodulation, and filtering functions. A careful partitioning of both analog- and digital-signal processing achieves the best performance, and today’s radios offer excellent sensitivity and 100-dB dynamic range, with digital-signal-processing-enabled selectivity. Although most radios still maintain the traditional format of a front panel with a large knob to control the frequency and lots of other buttons and knobs, some newer SDRs (software-defined radios), such as those from FlexRadio, abandon this tradition in favor of keyboard and mouse operation; they have no front-panel controls (Figure 4).


Handheld VHF FM transceivers have evolved to include multiband operation, embedded GPS, spectrum-analyzer displays to show signals on adjacent frequencies, and even Bluetooth. None have yet reached the level of sophistication of smartphones, but touchscreen-driven radios and Internet connectivity cannot be far off. Speaking of smartphones, hundreds of ham-radio apps are available for these devices, ranging from license-prep courses to satellite tracking to remote-station control.


Home-brewed radios can range from extremely simple transmitters and receivers to true state-of-the-art SDR systems. At the low end, one creative ham disassembled a compact fluorescent light bulb and discovered a high-speed, high-voltage switching transistor and assorted capacitors and inductors. By adding a 3.579-MHz TV colorburst quartz crystal, which sits conveniently in the middle of the 80m amateur band, he was able to construct a 1.5W CW transmitter from the parts (Reference 2).


However, not all hams buy their equipment off the shelf. Some prefer to build their own equipment. Ham operators have always been enthusiastic tinkerers, often building their equipment from discarded pieces of consumer electronics they find in their neighborhoods. Many hams understand concepts such as intermodulation distortion and phase noise, for example, because they have heard the effects of these signal imperfections, and they understand what happens when a nominally linear power amplifier enters hard compression.


Simple receivers are also easy to construct. Ham operator Charles Kitchin has developed a series of super-regenerative receivers that are easy to build and that work surprisingly well (Reference 3).
The work of the High-Performance Software-Defined Radio Organization is at the cutting edge of radio design. This group has collaboratively developed a series of modules that use the latest high-performance components, including the RF amplifiers, mixers, ADCs, DACs, processors, and memory. For example, the Mercury receiver module enables direct sampling of the 0- to 65-MHz spectrum, using a 130M-sample/sec, 16-bit ADC and an FPGA to undertake digital downconversion. Open-source software performs all of the signal-processing and control functions, and the hardware also supports third-party software (Figure 5).
An engineer interested in developing his own SDR radio can build or buy an RF front-end/quadrature downconverter and connect it to the audio input of a PC and buy or write appropriate software for the demodulation and detection functions. Connecting the baseband in-phase and quadrature outputs of the radio to the left and the right inputs of the PC completes all of the hardware work. Some hams have constructed SDR front ends in the form factors of USB memory sticks and draw their power from those sockets.
For those more inclined toward classic analog-radio design, OpenQRP is an interesting project. “QRP” is a ham abbreviation for low-power transmitter (Figure 6). The creator of the group, Steve Elliott, call sign K1EL, has developed an open-source hardware and software design for a simple low-power CW transceiver. He uses an Atmel microprocessor in the popular Arduino prototyping platform for the human interface and various control functions and provides a PCB and complete kit of parts. Elliott documented his trial-and-error design as it evolved, and his blog serves as an excellent tutorial on radio design (Reference 4).


The state of the art
Some segments of the ham-radio hobby allow you to impress your engineering friends, and maybe even your non-engineering friends. When you tell people you are into ham radio, they often ask, “How far can you reach with that?” The answer is complicated, and you may be able to give them some impressive answers. For nontechnical types, one answer I like to give is that, from my home in New England, my longest-distance contact for many years was Texas—the long way around. One morning about 20 years ago, I was operating on the 15m, 21-MHz band and had aimed my directional-beam antenna at Europe. A friend in Texas called in and said that he could hear me only when he pointed his antenna toward the Pacific. We tried various things and concluded that we were indeed talking to each other the long way around. HF propagation exhibits interesting behaviors at different times of day and season, and long-path contacts are relatively common.


Hams also experiment with other interesting and unusual terrestrial-propagation modes in the microwave region. In 2010, a group of French and Swiss amateurs took advantage of the evaporative duct—a horizontal layer in the lower atmosphere about 10 to 20m above the ocean’s surface in which radio signals are guided, or ducted, and in which they experience less attenuation than they otherwise would. The amateurs used this duct to establish two-way SSB voice contacts between Cape Verde and Portugal at frequencies of 5.7 and 10 GHz—a distance of 2700 km, or nearly 1700 miles. Transmitter power was 15 to 25W, and the antennas were small—approximately 1m-diameter dishes.


A few years ago, Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist Joe Taylor, call sign K1JT, developed the WSJT (weak-signal Joe Taylor) suite of protocols and modulation schemes for various types of VHF/UHF communications. Under normal circumstances, VHF and UHF signals can have path lengths of only a few tens or hundreds of miles long, depending on terrain, antenna gain, and power. WSJT changes that scenario.


One version of the protocol targets use in the RF-reflecting paths of ionized meteor trails, which last only a fraction of a second. It transmits a 30-sec-long sequence of four-tone FSK at a speed roughly equivalent to 100 words per minute, or 441 baud, in an effort to get enough bits over the short-lived path to enable an exchange of call signs and signal reports. Stations take turns transmitting and receiving, exchanging certain details to verify that each end of the path has successfully detected and decoded signals. Although the US military has for many years used meteor scatter, the mode generally requires huge antennas and high power to succeed. Taylor’s system brings meteor-scatter communications to owners of relatively small stations.



Another WSJT mode is for earth-to-moon-to-earth, or “moon-bounce,” communications, which uses the moon as a passive, and not very efficient, reflector. Signals at 144 MHz bouncing off the moon return to Earth about 2.5 sec later and approximately 250 dB weaker than when they left (Figure 7). That figure is not an error; the path loss is 250 dB.
Hams have for decades been bouncing signals off the moon, but only those with full-power transmitters, very sensitive receivers, and huge antennas could accomplish it using the traditional CW or SSB voice modes. Assuming a transmitter power of 1000W, or 60 dBm, and antenna gain of 20 dBi at both the transmitter and the receiver, the received signal is −150 dBm. A high-performance receiver can detect this weak signal in a narrow bandwidth. Amateurs have occasionally used the well-known 1000-foot radio-astronomy-dish antenna at Arecibo, Puerto Rico, for moon-bounce experiments. In the amateur band at 432 MHz, the dish has approximately 60 dB of gain and enables two-way contacts with simple stations on both SSB and CW modes.


Taylor’s WSJT moon-bounce system uses a nearly one-minute-long sequence of 65-tone FSK modulation, with a considerable amount of built-in coding and error correction. Fortunately, the coding and decoding are well within the processing capabilities of a modern PC, which can decode signals 24 to 28 dB below the noise in a 2.4-kHz bandwidth. Stations with simple 100W transmitters and antennas no bigger than TV antennas now routinely make contact with stations many thousands of miles away, as long as both are able to “see” the moon.


Radio amateurs have also used other satellites besides the moon for communication. Over the years, amateurs have designed, constructed, and launched more than 100 satellites, which usually carry one or more beacons; telemetry channels for various housekeeping functions and student-experiment payloads; and one or more transponders, which use one amateur band for the uplink and another for the downlink. ARISSat (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station Satellite)-1 was launched during a spacewalk by two cosmonauts. Many astronauts and cosmonauts have held amateur-radio licenses. The ARRL (American Radio Relay League) ARISS program frequently arranges demonstration contacts between astronauts aboard the ISS and school groups. The ARRL has been the national association for hams for almost 100 years. It publishes a range of books on virtually every facet of the hobby, along with study guides and manuals.


Ham radio can add a new dimension to a hobby you may already pursue. Some hams combine orienteering with radio-direction finding in “fox hunts.” The organizers hide a series of small radio transmitters in a designated area covering a few square miles, and the competitors must use a portable radio and directional antenna to locate each of the “foxes.” The combination of technical skill and running ability makes for a competitive sport. Another activity combines mountain hiking with the ham-radio hobby. Hikers carry lightweight, battery-powered radios and portable antennas to take advantage of the excellent signal propagation possible from high elevations. Both operators who get on the air from many summits and those who contact them can win awards in this sport. In addition, many sailors get their ham licenses and install amateur equipment on their boats for recreation and as emergency backups if all other onboard radio systems fail.


For those who are active in their communities, amateur-radio groups often coordinate with local and regional public-safety agencies to provide emergency communications when all else fails. Although most wired- and wireless-communications systems rely on infrastructure that may not survive natural or manmade disasters, a ham operator needs only a radio, a battery, and a piece of wire to get on the air.

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A Great Overview Doug, Thank You from SM ( Sweden)



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References
1.Part 97, Title 47, Federal Communications Commission, Sept 7, 2006, pg 587.
2.“Das DereLicht"
3.Kitchin, Charles, “A Short Wave Regenerative Receiver Project."
4.OpenQRP

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Author’s biography
Doug Grant received his first ham-radio license from the FCC in 1967 and his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Lowell Technological Institute (now the University of Massachusetts—Lowell). He has more than 30 years’ experience in the semiconductor industry, mostly at Analog Devices, where he worked in engineering; marketing; and product-line management for analog, mixed-signal, RF, and wireless products. He has logged close to 500,000 contacts with other radio hams in every country in the world. Grant is now an independent consultant specializing in semiconductor and wireless technologies.
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For More Information
Alinco
ARRL
Atmel
Elecraft
FCC
FlexRadio Systems
High-Performance SDR Organization
Icom America
Kenwood
OpenQRP
Wouxun
WSJT


EDN (ISSN 0012-7515) is a magazine published by UBM Electronics, a division of United Business Media. Originally called Electrical Design News, the first issue was published by Rogers Corporation in May 1956.[1] With a circulation of over 125,010 in North America alone[2], EDN is also published in Asia, China, Europe, and Japan through partner publishers who license content from UBM Electronics. The magazine is published 24 times per year. It caters to the working electrical engineer and covers new technologies and electronic component products at an engineering level. Columns managing engineers and engineering projects, technical issues faced in the design of electronic components and developing technologies. The editor-in-chief is Patrick Mannion with the editorial offices of the magazine in San Francisco, California and Manhasset, New York, USA. Former owner Reed Business Information sold the magazine to Canon Communications in February 2010, in October of 2010 Cannon Communications was acquired by United Business Media.

The "Reality Check" column runs in each issue and takes a look back at a recent technology innovation and the promises it made, comparing the hype to the state of the technology today. The "Design Ideas" department features several reader-submitted designs that are innovative or novel solutions to constrained design problems. Every other issue features a column called "Prying Eyes" which disassembles a popular consumer product and investigates the technologies that enable it.
Awards In May 2006, EDN won three awards from the American Society of Business Publication Editors.  The Best Regular Department of the Year award went to "Prying Eyes"./Wikipedia

At least seven dead after 'horrific' M5 crash

The images of the M5 crash are horrendous - and so are the witness accounts. Thirty-four vehicles including several lorries were involved in the pile-up which happened in wet and foggy conditions around 8.25pm last night near Taunton.
At least seven people are dead - but there are warnings that number could rise. The wreckage is so burnt out it has been hard to be sure. Andy Davies is on the scene and will have the latest.
Edmund King from the AA will be joining us - he believes more thinking is needed on the safety of lorry fuel tanks in the same way safety in cars has been improved radically over the years.

Swedish focus on earthquake protection


04 November 2011
Swedish nuclear power plant operators will incorporate improvements highlighted by stress tests with a pre-existing program to standardise safety in earthquake scenarios.

Oskarshamn 3
(Image: OKG)







Some 34 countries are participating in a project led by the European Commission to put nuclear power plants through paper-based analyses where they are subjected to extreme circumstances and events such as natural disasters. The aim is to find the ultimate resilience of procedures and safety engineering and identify any 'cliff-edge' effects where the loss of a certain system may make a serious accident unavoidable.
On a common schedule, many of the countries have in recent days confirmed that their nuclear power plants are properly sited, designed and managed. However, a statement from the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority (SSM) frankly pointed out that: "What we can already see is that some plants do not fully meet requirements in the case of earthquakes. Here we will need to take action."
Jan Hanberg, SSM's head of radiation protection who led the stress test program, explained to World Nuclear News that there were no specific earthquake requirements in the early days of the Swedish nuclear program. The country relied on the intrinsic strength of each design in scenarios of strong earthquakes, which are highly unlikely due to Sweden's geology. Of the country's ten reactors, only Oskarshamn 3 and Forsmark 3 were licensed to specific earthquake resistance standards.
This potential gap in safety was addressed during 2005 by new earthquake-specific regulation imposed in a way that gave operators until 2013 to ensure their existing plants met requirements. Stress tests, however, had to be conducted based on the plant status as of 1 July this year. Hanberg told WNN that nuclear plant operators will continue to work towards the 2013 deadline, but may introduce additional safety measures in light of what has been learned through the stress tests. That may require a revision of the 2013 deadline, he said, depending on the programs of work agreed by SSM and the operators over the next month.
Some work will also be needed to ensure safety in scenarios involving a site with multiple reactors challenged simultaneously. SSM wants to be certain there will be sufficient command, control and fire-fighting capability.
Separately, SSM noted that Swedish nuclear power plants have excellent protection against radioactive release during accident scenarios. As part of learning from the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island in the USA all Swedish nuclear power plants were required to have filters to reduce the amount of radioactive material that would be released in an accident.
Researched and written
by World Nuclear News

GM may block the sale of Saab



Chinese acquisition may hurt 'interests,' automaker says

General Motors Co. said Friday it might block the sale of troubled Swedish automaker Saab Automobile AB to a Chinese consortium.
Saab, which is reorganizing in Sweden under court protection from creditors, has faced mounting financial problems this year as several funding sources fell through. It has built few vehicles since late March, and its employees have suffered through payless paydays.
"GM would not be able to support a change in the ownership of Saab which could negatively impact GM's existing relationships in China or otherwise adversely affect GM's interests worldwide," said GM spokeswoman Renee Rashid-Merem.
GM is Saab's former parent company, and it was one of four brands GM opted to shed during its 2009 bankruptcy restructuring.
GM owns the technology Saab uses to produce two key models, which gives GM the upper hand.
Pang Da Automobile Trade Co. and Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Automobile Co. said last week they had agreed to buy Saab from its Dutch owner Swedish Automobile NV for $140 million.
GM is the largest automaker in China through its joint ventures and is concerned about the intellectual property it has licensed to Saab.
GM also has built the 9-4X for Saab in Mexico this year.
The deal must win approval from the European Investment Bank, the Swedish and Chinese governments and GM.
Saab CEO Victor Muller has been working to persuade its loyal U.S. customer base to try the brand again.
The company, whose North American headquarters is in Royal Oak, has struggled.
Saab's sales fell from 49,000 in the United States in 2003 to 5,800 in 2010, the year GM sold it. "The figures don't lie," Muller said in a Detroit News interview in May.
Through October, Saab has sold 4,984 vehicles in the United States.
There are 1.5 million Saabs on the road worldwide, including 300,000 in the United States.

From Jerusalem

La Liga


Omgång 12
Dagens matcher





Mallorca - Sevilla kl 18.00 PS slutade 0-0; Betis - Málaga kl. 20.00 PS slutade 0-0; Levante - Valencia kl. 22.00

Sevilla:  Javi Varas, Cáceres, Spahic, Escudé, Navarro, Medel, Rakitic, Trochowski, Navas, Armenteros och Manu.
Mallorca: Aouate, Cendrós, Chico, Ramis, Bigas, Tissone, Pina, N'Sue, Alfaro, Castro och Hemed.

Rekordutsläpp av växthusgaser

Under förra året slog de globala utsläppen av växthusgaser alla tidigare rekord, enligt siffror från det amerikanska energidepartementet.
- Våra data går tillbaka till 1751, till före den industriella revolutionen. Aldrig tidigare har vi sett en ökning på 500 miljoner ton på ett enda år, säger den amerikanske klimatexperten Tom Boden.
Ökningen motsvarar sex procents tillväxt av utsläppen mellan 2009 och 2010. Mest ökade de i Kina, därefter kom USA och Indien. /Svenska Dagbladet

"Fina" klimatmöten uppstår med jämna mellanrum och det pratas mycket
inte bara på nämnda möten, men vem bryr sig egentligen om detta jordens största problem? Svar: ingen!
Ja, men världens ledare då, har de inget ansvar? Svar: nej.
De flesta av världens ledare kan snarare betraktas som katastrofer, med eller utan Berlusconi i spetsen.


Växthusgaser?
Bah, vem har lust att
ägna tid åt sånt dynga?
Det finns ju viktiga ärenden,
och för en person i maktposition
och med stålar och rakkräm (Viagra) i
bakfickan innebär detta rakt spår
in i den  skönaste av världar,
långt från jordiska klimatproblem.



The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth


Missa inte detta >>
http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/Videos/CrewEarthObservationsVideos/#europetoasia_iss_20111029

En 17-åring misstänks för mordförsök

En 17-åring misstänks för mordförsök sedan han skjutit rakt in i en villa utanför Boden natten mot fredagen. Ingen person skadades.
17-åringen med initialerna T.E. har kunnat hittas på Facebook, men är nu 'raderad'.
T.E. verkar vara en pojke som har övergivits av alla (min gissning) och han har ägnat sig åt drogmissbruk i någon form. Han är inte invandrare.

Live Music

© DR
Hélène Grimaud, Jan Vogler
Sunday, November 6th at 3.30pm GMT
Live from the Cité de la musique, Paris
The last concert of this series brings the French pianist to play with the German cellist Jan Vogler,

in a chamber music programme made up of works by Schumann, Brahms and Shostakovich.
Enjoy live the Fantasiestücke by Schumann, Brahms' Cello
Sonata Op. 38 also known as 'pastoral sonata', and eventually the Sonata for Cello and Piano, Op. 40 by Shostakovich.
This concert will also be available on www.citedelamusique.tv

© Robert Schultze/Mat Hennek © DR
Hélène Grimaud : Bach,Silvestrov,Dvorák
Saturday, November 5th at 7pm GMT
Live from the Cité de la musique, Paris
The French pianist has chosen Bach's Concerto for piano and strings No.1 in D minor,
along with two works for orchestra and piano by the Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov.
In the second part of the concert, the Kammerorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunk
will play Dvořák's String Serenade. This concert will also be available on www.citedelamusique.tv.

More than one thousand questions for the Chancellor

Thu, 27.10.2011
Last week the German government went online with its own YouTube channel and the invitation to put your own questions to the Chancellor. Internet users have been quick to make use of this opportunity. In the first week alone more than 1,000 questions were registered.
You can put your questions to the Chancellor in writing or by video. The focus so far has been on topical political issues – Europe and the euro, the labour market and social security. But there have also been private questions to the Chancellor.

YouTube users have the opportunity to vote on questions. This generates a ranking list, over which the government has no influence. The Chancellor has declared herself willing to answer the ten highest ranked questions in detail within the scope of an interview. The interview can be viewed on YouTube as of 18 November.

Government YouTube channel well received
The response has been phenomenal across the board. The comment function attached to the Chancellor’s podcasts and videos has also been well received. More than 460 comments have so far been released. All in all, more than 73,000 uploads have been called up and the channel has clocked up more than 63,000 visitors. Subscriber numbers too are very encouraging – more than 1,700 users have signed up to receive regular information via the channel.
With the new channel the government has managed to reach not only younger YouTube users – the over-30s too make regular use of the new offer.

Put your question to the Chancellor via YouTube >>
http://www.bundesregierung.de/Webs/Breg/EN/SendArticle/sendmail.html?handOverParams=docId%3D1146768%26uriHash%3Dd9cfa156be1a7480%26uri%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.bundesregierung.de%252FContent%252FEN%252FArtikel%252F__2011%252F10%252F2011-10-27-youtube-nr-tausend__en.html

Greek Leader Survives Confidence Vote, A.P. Reports, Bolstering Debt Deal

 Prime Minister George Papandreou of Greece has narrowly survived a confidence vote in Parliament, calming a revolt in his own Socialist Party with a pledge to seek an interim government that would secure a comprehensive accord to save the euro, The Associated Press reported. /New York Times

fredag, november 04, 2011

Good Night

   Bruckner Symphony no. 8 4th Mov

G20 failure?


So at the end of a tremendously turbulent week, the leaders of the world's most affluent nations appear to have failed to come up with any sort of agreement likely to resolve the eurozone crisis. There have been lots of hopeful words - in the closing communique from the G20 Cannes summit and the leaders' news conferences afterwards.
But the very demeanour of these powerful politicians is revealing. Tense, combative, frustrated - they claimed to have laid the groundwork for a future deal but investors seem to have little reason to be more confident today than they were yesterday. Our Political Editor Gary Gibbon, will be reporting from Cannes.

Seven commercial carriers fly the A380.

 


Seven carriers

In October, China Southern Airlines' first Airbus A380 made its maiden voyage from Beijing to Guangzhou, about 100 miles northwest of Hong Kong, becoming the first carrier to fly the superjumbo jet in China.
The Asian carrier becomes the seventh airline worldwide to fly the A380 commercially. Others that operate the plane are Korean Air, Lufthansa, Air France, Emirates, Qantas Airways and Singapore Airlines.
Pictured, clockwise from top left: China Southern Airlines, Korean Air, Qantas Airways, Air France, Singapore Airlines, Lufthansa and Emirates.
Source >> Los Angeles Times

Lufthansa Airbus A380 roadshow at Malta International Airport - 19/3/2011:





För att få en uppfattning om planets storlek, jämför med den gula bilen nere i högra hörnet av bilden. Foto: Lars Forssell.


Fakta Airbus A380:
Lufthansas flygplan A380 är det största och modernaste passagerarplanet i världen. Det är 73 meter långt, 24 meter högt, och har en startvikt på upp till 560 ton. Planet har plats för 526 passagerare, och dess fyra Rolls-Royce-motorer genererar i grova drag lika mycket dragkraft som 3 500 bilar skulle kunna producera. "The Megaliner", som flygplanet också kallas, är tystare än andra plan, använder mindre bränsle och kan till och med anpassa bromsverkan själv efter landning.



 WOW   (klicka på bilden för bättre läsbarhet)
THE WORLD FROM BERLIN
'The Common Currency Endgame Has Begun
Greece has backed away from holding a referendum on the euro bailout package. This week's tumult, however, shows that Europe is still far away from solving the euro crisis. German editorialists on Friday warn that the worst-case scenario may arrive sooner rather than later.

IMF BABYSITTER FOR BERLUSCONI
Italy Becomes Next Euro Battleground
Greece is a problem for the European common currency. But Italy could be a catastrophe. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is losing support at home and on Thursday evening, he agreed to have his austerity efforts monitored by the IMF. Concern is rising that Italy could be the next euro battleground.

Gina Dirawi antisemit?

GINA DIRAWI

Det som är allvarligt med åsikterna är att de är ickedemokratiska, säger SVT:s kommunikationsdirektör Helga Baagøe appropå Gina Dirawis  blogginlägg där hon jämför staten Israel med Hitler. Om hon kan vara kvar som programledare för Melodifestivalen är oklart. Märkvärdigt val av SVT må man tycka.

Kinas rymdindustri tar världsledningen


Kinas rymdindustri växer snabbt, samtidigt som USA och Europa lägger projekt i malpåse.Kina storsatsar på kommersiell rymdteknik, men också på ett ambitiöst månprogram.Just nu kretsar landets första rymdlaboratorium runt jorden. /NY TEKNIK 
Läs mer >>
http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/fordon_motor/rymden/article3305794.ece

The Giant Nebula, NGC 3603





The Giant Nebula, NGC 3603
Thousands of sparkling young stars nestled within the giant nebula NGC 3603. This stellar "jewel box" is one of the most massive young star clusters in the Milky Way Galaxy. NGC 3603 is a prominent star-forming region in the Carina spiral arm of the Milky Way, about 20,000 light-years away. This image shows a young star cluster surrounded by a vast region of dust and gas. The image reveals stages in the life cycle of stars. The nebula was first discovered by Sir John Herschel in 1834. The image spans roughly 17 light-years.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage

Läkare i psykiatrin skriver protestbrev


Läkarna inom vuxenpsykiatrin i Kronoberg rasar mot nya sparkrav. Landstingets relation till ett konsultföretag beskrivs som ”bondfångeri” och ”korrupt”.

Det är Smålandsposten som rapporterar att 18 enhetschefer, överläkare och medicinskt ledningsansvariga läkare har skrivit ett protestbrev där de slår fast att fötroendet för landstingsledningen är förbukat. Anledningen är att Landstinget Kronoberg har anlitat konsultföretaget Ledningsbolaget för att se över verksamheten och sänka kostnaderna.

Samma företag har hjälpt landstinget att genomföra tidigare besparingsåtgärder.
– Vår nya chefläkare och även vår nya verksamhetschef kommer från Ledningsbolaget. De hyrs alltså först in för att granska verksamheten och får sedan chefsbefattningar. Hur fristående kan de vara? Det är rena bondfångeriet. Så korrupt, säger överläkaren Margareta Dahlberg till Smålandsposten.
Hon och kollegorna tycker att landstingsledningen är feg som inte står för att vården blir sämre när psykiatrin måste spara.
– Tillgängligheten kommer att bli sämre, sjuka som inte borde skrivas ut kommer att skrivas ut ändå. Det blir konsekvenserna av besparingarna, men det vill ledningen inte höra. De väljer i stället att lägga hela verksamheten i händerna på Ledningsbolaget. Det är skandal.
Landstingsdirektören Börje Lindqvist uppger att han tar synpunkterna ”på största allvar”. Samtidigt avfärdar han kritiken om att Ledningsbolagets dubbla uppdrag är ett tecken på korruption.
– Det är överord. Ledningsbolaget är ett etablerat företag. De kan göra granskningar av verksamheten och även hjälpa till där det finns ett behov av ledningspersonal.

Oldest Recorded Supernova


This image combines data from four different space telescopes to create a multi-wavelength view of all that remains of the oldest documented example of a supernova, called RCW 86. The Chinese witnessed the event in 185 A.D., documenting a mysterious "guest star" that remained in the sky for eight months. X-ray images from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton Observatory are combined to form the blue and green colors in the image. The X-rays show the interstellar gas that has been heated to millions of degrees by the passage of the shock wave from the supernova.
Infrared data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, as well as NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) are shown in yellow and red, and reveal dust radiating at a temperature of several hundred degrees below zero, warm by comparison to normal dust in our Milky Way galaxy.
By studying the X-ray and infrared data together, astronomers were able to determine that the cause of the explosion witnessed nearly 2,000 years ago was a Type Ia supernova, in which an otherwise-stable white dwarf, or dead star, was pushed beyond the brink of stability when a companion star dumped material onto it. Furthermore, scientists used the data to solve another mystery surrounding the remnant -- how it got to be so large in such a short amount of time. By blowing a wind prior to exploding, the white dwarf was able to clear out a huge "cavity," a region of very low-density surrounding the system. The explosion into this cavity was able to expand much faster than it otherwise would have.
This is the first time that this type of cavity has been seen around a white dwarf system prior to explosion. Scientists say the results may have significant implications for theories of white-dwarf binary systems and Type Ia supernovae.
RCW 86 is approximately 8,000 light-years away. At about 85 light-years in diameter, it occupies a region of the sky in the southern constellation of Circinus that is slightly larger than the full moon.
Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO & ESA; Infared: NASA/JPL-Caltech/B. Williams (NCSU)

"Sverige profiterar på förtryck"

Aktuella frågor.Trots rika naturresurser är fattigdomen utbredd i Västpapua. Svenska Sandvik, AP-fonderna och Lundin Petroleum medverkar i rovdriften på landets tillgångar, skriver Thomas Petersson, journalist och författare till två böcker om Västpapua. /Sydsvenskan
Läs mer >> http://www.sydsvenskan.se/opinion/aktuellafragor/article1569735/Sverige-profiterar-pa-fortryck.html

Holly Petraeus gets it‏



Good evening,

I want to make sure you heard a piece of news from Capitol Hill today.
This morning, Holly Petraeus, who has been leading an office at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to protect military families, went to Capitol Hill to highlight some of the most abusive practices our service members face in today's financial marketplace.
She explained that military families are the targets of predatory lenders. She talked about how many service members and their families struggle to make ends meet -- especially during deployments. And she said that the CFPB will help combat the lenders who try to take advantage of people with deceptive, unfair, and abusive lending practices.
But here's the thing: The Senate still hasn't confirmed President Obama's nominee to lead the CFPB, a former Attorney General from Ohio named Rich Cordray. The bureau needs a director to fully ensure that the debt collectors, private student loan providers, and payday loan providers are properly supervised and that consumers are not put at risk of falling prey to the same kinds of abusive practices that helped cause the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
Rich has spent his career advocating for middle class families, and enjoys broad, bipartisan support from the elected officials, business leaders, and consumer groups who have worked with him.
Take a minute to read what Holly had to say, and share her testimony with those you know.
Holly Petraeus is the daughter of a decorated general, wife of a four-star general, and mother of an Army soldier who served in Afghanistan. I don't know if there's anyone who better understands what it means to be part of an American military family.
She just gets the stress and challenges that those who serve in uniform, as well as their loved ones, face.
And that's exactly why she joined the CFPB, to safeguard our military personnel and their families.
Republicans in Congress could be taking steps to grow the economy by passing the American Jobs Act. There is no reason why John Boehner should send his members home to their districts without passing a single measure President Obama has proposed to help put the country back on track. Nor is there any reason why the Senate should require 60 votes on these proposals. Republicans could be helping to ensure that every American family gets a tax cut. And Republicans should be working to protect consumers by confirming Rich Cordray.
We can't wait. That's why I want you to hear from Holly Petraeus. I want everyone to understand how much sense it makes for the Senate to put Rich Cordray to work.
So check it out.
Thanks,
Vice President Joe Biden

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