“Given the complicated nature of federal contracts, it’s difficult to make a direct comparison between the cost to develop Healthcare.gov and the amount of money spent building private online businesses. But for the sake of putting the monstrous amount of money into perspective, here are a few figures to chew on: Facebook, which received its first investment in June 2004, operated for a full six years before surpassing the $500 million mark in June 2010. Twitter, created in 2006, managed to get by with only $360.17 million in total funding until a $400 million boost in 2011. Instagram ginned up justt $57.5 million in funding before Facebook bought it for (a staggering) $1 billion last year. And LinkedIn and Spotify, meanwhile, have only raised, respectively, $200 million and $288 million.

http://rt.com/usa/obamacare-websites-cost-millions-002/

http://www.digitaltrends.com/opinion/obamacare-healthcare-gov-website-cost/”

The increasingly likely shutdown of the US government could have far-reaching effects throughout the US. If Congress fails to reach an agreement to avert a shutdown by midnight ET Monday, some services – mail delivery, Social Security and Medicare benefits – would not be affected.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/29/us-government-shutdown-services-affected

Today saw good news for solar power, as Bloomberg's New Energy Finance group predicted 2013 would be the first year in which the world adds more solar power capacity than wind. The service predicted that 36.7 gigawatts of new solar power capacity would be added in 2013, up 20% from 2012, compared to 35.5 gigawatts of new wind power. The service credited the speed-up to new incentives in Japan and China, combined with a dramatic reduction in the cost of solar panels.

Wind installations still contribute more than twice as much power as solar, representing 5% of global power supply compared to solar's 2%, but new installations are slowing as Chinese and American incentives lapse and windmills face greater competition from newly cheap solar panels. Bloomberg predicts the coming years will see the technologies even out, respectively contributing 17% and 16% of global power supply by 2030.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/27/4777558/the-world-will-add-more-solar-power-than-wind-this-year-for-the-first

12. Let go of all external validations. You know yourself better than anyone else. You also know, both instinctively and intellectually, what’s best for you. That doesn’t mean there’s any shortage of people in the world who would love nothing more than to tell you what to do. Don’t listen to them.


What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others. – Confucius

A new study has found that just 50 corporations are responsible for 73% of the 3.6 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emitted by the world’s 500 largest companies. Of the carbon-polluting corporations the most egregious offenders are, perhaps unsurprisingly, to be found within the energy sector, and as a whole, these companies are doing little to change their ways; the CDP Global 500 Climate Change Report 2013 found that the 50 giants have become even greater polluters in the last four years.

The CDP Global 500 Climate Change Report is published by PricewaterhouseCoopers, and calculates and analyzes the emissions and disclosures of the Global 500 companies by industry (403 of the companies took part in this year’s study). A number of the findings are largely unsurprising: Wal Mart is the greatest offender within the ‘Consumer Staples’ category and ExxonMobil in the Energy sector. Interestingly, Bank of America has the greatest emissions per unit of revenue in the Financial sector, Bayer in Healthcare, Samsung in Information Technology and Verizon in Telecommunications.

While GHG emissions from the Global 500 fell overall in recent years—from 4.2 to 3.6 billion metric tons—the top 50 corporations have managed to increase their emissions by 1.65% since 2009. This represents, the report states “a disparity between the companies’ strategies, targets and the emissions reductions that are required to limit global warming to 2 degrees C.”

http://inhabitat.com/10-of-worlds-largest-companies-produce-73-of-greenhouse-gas-emissions/