US EIA Last year, the US saw its lowest carbon emissions since 1994, continuing a downward trend that began in 2008 during the economic crisis. It marks the second year in a row that carbon emissions have dropped despite a growth in gross domestic product. Prior to the last few years, economic growth had been closely tied to increased carbon emissions. The US Energy Information Administration released the data yesterday after having taken a bit of an unwanted break during the government shutdown. In analyzing the data, it identified a variety of causes for the drop in carbon emissions. As shown above, population size and economic activity both grew last year, which would normally push emissions up. But the energy required for that economic activity dropped, and the carbon intensity of the energy supply dropped as well. Combined, those two factors more than offset the economic growth. One of the simplest factors behind the lower energy use was a relatively warm winter at the start of 2012, which lowered residential energy demand significantly. Transportation also managed to contribute. Although miles travelled held steady, the turnover in the vehicle fleet brought more energy-efficient cars onto the road, meaning that it took less fuel to do all that travel. Another contributor is the turnover in electrical generation. Coal use dropped dramatically, replaced by a combination of natural gas and wind power. A drop in manufacturing contributed to a slight drop in overall energy use. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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US carbon emissions hit lowest level since 1994 despite economic growth
The Department of Health and Human Services announced on October 20 that the agency has launched a “tech surge” to make improvements to the troubled Affordable Care Act (ACA) health insurance exchange website , HealthCare.gov. The move comes as President Barack Obama reportedly prepares to speak about the site’s issues at an event today highlighting the ACA, frequently referred to as “Obamacare.” Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius had previously blamed most of the problems experienced by citizens visiting the site on unexpected demand. But as problems have continued, the White House has grown increasingly frustrated with the site’s performance. An administration official told the Washington Post that the president and others in the administration “find [the problems with HealthCare.gov] unacceptable.” While HealthCare.gov is being operated almost entirely by a team of contractors, HHS is now stepping in to take an active role in resolving the site’s problems. In a blog post , an unidentified agency spokesperson wrote “Our team is bringing in some of the best and brightest from both inside and outside government to scrub in with the team and help improve HealthCare.gov.” Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments 
Windows 8 was an ambitious operating system. Microsoft’s goal was, and still is, to have a single operating system that can span the traditional PC, the tablet, and everything in between . To do this, the company introduced a new kind of application —the “Modern” or “Metro” style application. It created a new style of interaction—an edge-based UI for touch users, a hot-corner based one for mouse users. And it developed a new application launcher—the Start screen. Microsoft retained the familiar Windows desktop for running traditional mouse and keyboard driven Windows software. Windows 8 worked. It was a viable operating system, and in broad strokes, it fulfilled Microsoft’s dream of one operating system for tablets and PCs. But Windows 8 was far from perfect. Its problems were in three main areas. Read 91 remaining paragraphs | Comments 
