Free Environmental Solutions

A modern Day US Soldier who deserves a Biopic... Army Staff Sergeant Salvatore ‘Sal’ Giunta. Why He’s a Hero: In November 2010, Hiawatha, Iowa native Salvator ‘...Sal’ Giunta became the first living recipient of the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War. On October 25, 2007, at the age of 22, Sal was ambushed along with his platoon in northeast Afghanistan’s deadly Korengal Valley. Muzzle flashes and tracer fire erupted around them and the two lead men in Sal’s platoon were hit and went down. When a third soldier was struck in the helmet in front of Sal, he charged forward into a wall of bullets to pull his comrade to a safer spot. Sal was hit twice, one round pounding his body armor and the other shattering the weapon slung over his back. His modern-day heroism didn’t end there. Sal and some of the other members of his platoon regrouped and counterattacked. They threw grenades for cover and shot at the muzzle flashes bursting from the trees as they surged forward toward the other two wounded U.S. soldiers. They reached one of the men, who had been shot twice in the leg but had kept on returning fire until his gun jammed. As another soldier addressed his leg wounds, Sal Giunta continued onward until he saw a haunting sight: two insurgents were carrying the other injured U.S. soldier away, who was one of Sal’s closest friends. Sal raced at the insurgents, opened fire, and never slowed down. He killed one of them and injured the other, who quickly fled. Sal dragged his badly wounded friend to safety and spent nearly half an hour trying to stop the bleeding and help his friend breathe. God Bless Sal and God Bless America.... #thewolfway #wolfsdt #covid19 #usarmy #medalofhonor #warheroes #afghanistan

In the book of Ruth, the character of Boaz represents the culmination of God’s providence for the two destitute widows at the center of the story. In Boaz, Naom...i and her daughter-in-law Ruth found a kinsman redeemer, one whose responsibility was to act on behalf of a relative who was in trouble, danger, or need. Boaz demonstrates, perhaps better than any other in the Old Testament, how God, and the law he established, expected a kinsman redeemer to respond to a relative’s need. Boaz responded to the women’s plight with compassion, generosity, and without delay. His integrity magnificently foreshadows how Jesus Christ would redeem all who trust in his name from the slavery of sin and death. What can we in the modern era take away from the story of Boaz when customs are so different? No matter the age we live in, we can marvel at God’s providence and the sufficiency of the Redeemer he has sent. Trust in God..... #bluelivesmatter #wearewham #leo #waw #godisgood #wawmatters #alllivesmatter

Wolf CEOJonathan Wolf In episode 1 of The World Pandemic series updating the viewers on the current world pandemic, his insight into the world market, the state of the union, the future and the way to make a difference. God Bless America! www.wolfsdt.com #thewolfway #wolfsdt

Top 50 Green Colleges..... College of the Atlantic took the #1 Spot on the Princeton Review List of Top 50 Green Colleges for second consecutive year. The just released eighth annual guide to the most environmentally responsible green colleges named State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry as #2 and Colby College to the #3 slot. The Princeton Review’s Guide to 375 Green Colleges, 2017 profiles colleges with the most exceptional commitme...Continue reading

Fresh from kicking off his EDM career, Elon Musk has announced Tesla will be hosting a super fun AI hackathon at his house. In a tweet, Musk wrote: Tesla will hold a super fun AI party/hackathon at my house with the Tesla AI/autopilot team in about four weeks. Invitations going out soon. The hackathon will focus on the AI behind Tesla’s problematic AutoPilot feature which has been reported to accelerate erratically. Tesla has denied the claims but the hackathon suggests t...he company at least wants to make AutoPilot more robust. Ahead of the hackathon announcement, Musk called for developers to join Tesla’s AI team which, he says, reports directly to him. Talking up the opportunity, Musk highlighted that Tesla will soon have over a million connected vehicles worldwide. Every Tesla is fitted with the sensors and computing power needed for full self-driving which is orders of magnitude more than everyone else combined. Musk says that an individual’s educational background is irrelevant. However, before you get too excited you can just waltz into Tesla, you will be required to pass a hardcore coding test. Python is used for rapid iteration at Tesla to build neural networks before the code is converted into C++/C/raw metal driver code for the speed required for such critical tasks as piloting a vehicle. As part of that need for speed, Tesla is also taking on the challenge of building its own AI chips. Musk says Tesla is seeking world-class chip designers to join the company’s teams based in Palo Alto and Austin. Musk has been vocal about his fears of AI calling it a potentially existential threat if left unchecked. However, he is also well aware of its opportunities (if that’s of any surprise given how it’s helping to inflate his and investors’ wallets). My actions, not just words, show how critically I view (benign) AI, Musk wrote.

Meena is Google’s first truly conversational AI.... Google is attempting to build the first digital assistant that can truly hold a conversation with an AI project called Meena. Digital assistants like Alexa and Siri are programmed to pick up keywords and provide scripted responses. Google has previously demonstrated its work towards a more natural conversation with its Duplex project but Meena should offer another leap forward.... Meena is a neural network with 2.6 billion parameters. Google claims Meena is able to handle multiple turns in a conversation (everyone has that friend who goes off on multiple tangents during the same conversation, right?) Google published its work on e-print repository arXiv on Monday in a paper called Towards a Human-like Open Domain Chatbot. A neural network architecture called Transformer was released by Google in 2017 which is widely acknowledged to be among the best language models available. A variation of Transformer, along with a mere 40 billion English words, was used to train Meena. Google also debuted a metric alongside Meena called Sensibleness and Specificity Average (SSA) which measures the ability of agents to maintain a conversation. Meena scores 79 percent using the new SSA metric. For comparison, Mitsuku a Loebner Prize-winning AI agent developed by Pandora Bots scored 56 percent. The result of Meena brings its conversational ability close to that of humans. On average, humans score around 86 percent using the SSA metric. We don’t yet know when Google intends to debut Meena’s technology in its products but, as the digital assistant war heats up, we’re sure the company is as eager to release it as we are to use it.

Over the course of a couple of generations our buying behaviors have changed. Now, without giving it a second thought, we quickly discard one functional item in favor of a replacement that promises to perform better (who among us doesn’t have a drawer full of old cell phones?). Even with eco-friendly products, many believe that being green can only be found in newer, greener models, while similar items of a certain age are to be discarded. Considering the impact that this r...epetitive consumption has on our natural resources, that mindset has to change. For consumers who want to measure the true sustainability of their building project, we’re missing one key piece of information: durability. Durability refers to how long a manufacturer expects their product to consistently perform as it was designed to. While there are plenty of industry experts who can give you an average lifespan for just about anything, what they haven’t figured out yet is how that lifespan factors into measuring a product’s sustainability. While next-generation products may offer advancements in energy efficiency or eco-friendly materials, extending the performance of older products may, in some cases, be the greener choice. Think about the full range of environmental impacts associated with just one product over its life span. In our business, replacing a window doesn’t just mean creating waste by removing and discarding the old window. There are other significant impacts related to the new product, including the materials, energy and emissions associated with manufacturing, transporting and installing the replacement window.AndersenWindows2 The step in the analysis that we’ve been missing to-date is weighing a new product’s sustainable benefits against the resource savings associated with extending the life of a current product. In the case of windows, replacement may make sense if the old window’s energy efficiency or functional performance is poor, but if the old window is durable it may not. Our next challenge, therefore, is to measure and weight product durability as a factor in overall sustainability in order to prevent unnecessary waste and preserve valuable resources. Durability is a promotable quality, one that builds trust between the consumer and the company as it is proven with use. It’s long past time to incorporate durability when measuring a product’s sustainability. For companies, durability offers proof of a long-term mentality. For consumers, it is essential for evaluating real quality and future savings.

Greenest Cities in America for 2017 San Francisco tops the list of 2017’s Greenest Cities in America just released by personal-finance website, WalletHub. With October designated as National Energy Awareness Month and New York recently becoming the first city to unveil an actual plan that upholds the Paris Climate Agreement, WalletHub conducted an in-depth analysis to rank the greenest cities and determine which cities promote a green lifestyle. According to the Pew Resea...rch Center, today, nearly three in four Americans would agree that green living is a conscious choice. Some worry, however, that going green would cost the economy too much green and result in major employment cuts. Experts widely agree that clean energy and other environmental innovations including recycling programs and urban agriculture, also benefit public health and contribute to America’s bottom line.. Recognizing those advantages, the greenest cities across the U.S. have aligned their sustainability efforts with their economic goals and according to WalletHub have in turn received handsome returns those investments. Nearly 250 cities across America have pledged to uphold the Paris Climate Agreement. Greenest Cities in America 1 San Francisco, CA 2 San Diego, CA 3 Fremont, CA 4 Honolulu, HI 5 San Jose, CA 6 Washington, DC 7 Sacramento, CA 8 Irvine, CA 9 Portland, OR 10 Oakland, CA Least Green Cities in America 91 Oklahoma City, OK 92 Cleveland, OH 93 Lexington-Fayette, KY 94 Toledo, OH 95 Tulsa, OK 96 St. Petersburg, FL 97 Louisville, KY 98 Jacksonville, FL 99 Baton Rouge, LA 100 Corpus Christi, TX