Posted by Haltse on November 5, 2008 – 9:17 am
Filed under General, science
There’s an inverse relationship between technology, modern society and return to a time that exists in Disney movies. Happy serfs one and all:) What is it that drives those with the least practical skills to want to go back to a lifestyle were they would be necessary for survival? They planning on taking up the yoke as it were?
Anyway nearly all attempts to take a massively complex system and put an apparently “common sense” reading on it doesn’t quite work. Yes transit does use up resources but if you take the examples in this piece it’s ofter less than forcing the local climate to support it. E.g if you could only eat that which grows native to your locale it would totally suck. Suck as in the malnutrition , scurvy and other fun atavistic maladies sense.
The Food Miles Mistake: Saving the planet by eating New Zealand apples – Reason Magazine
Food miles are supposed to be a simple way to gauge food’s impact on climate change.
…Local food production does not always produce fewer greenhouse gas
emissions. For example, the 2005 DEFRA study found that British tomato
growers emit 2.4 metric tons of carbon dioxide for each ton of tomatoes
grown compared to 0.6 tons of carbon dioxide for each ton of Spanish
tomatoes….
Posted by Haltse on September 16, 2008 – 11:26 am
One of the greatest losses of moving to the USA was that of the BBC Radio services. Sadly the BBC is funded by a tax not for using their services but for the gall of operating a TV , Radio or Satellite receiver. Licensing electronic media which is the ONLY practical location were people of limited means could find out what’s up in their society, you know get informed which is what we’re told is crucial to playing the game that is democracy , is a pretty horrible way to behave.
You must pay the $200+ a year to the BBC even if you never use their service. Yet for free I can access this programming over the net. ( odd that but I’m grateful anyway)
I listened to a short series about the placebo effect ,BBC – Radio 4 – Placebo, which goes into depths on just how much ” it’s all in the mind” goes towards reducing the perception of pain, recovery time and general mental well being. Yep sugar pills work , their analogs work ( reiki, reflexology or anything that has a believable story that your culture buys into )
In short
We feel what we expect to find as long as we’re committed to that belief.
Reality can be changed by symbols , yep symbols really are for the symbol minded.
And advertising.. well 
that’s another story.
Posted by Haltse on September 11, 2008 – 10:06 am
Came across this item on the Clean Technica blog which has a practical view of energy that’s sadly lacking on those that oppose it. Hell in the UK when Torness , a nuclear power station, was being built many locals had a sticker that said “nuclear power? No thanks. Atop an image of the sun. I laughed, I still laugh and to this day usually ascribe such glorious ignorance to those that want to save the planet but ONLY within their ideological boundaries on what’s comfy technology wise. In most cases their comfort level is fire , then you have the raw foodies who’ve not even gotten that far but more abuse on that natural crowd later. Natural does not equal good in all, hell most cases. That people post these online rather than using a “natural” rock to stand and engage passers by with leads me to question their commitment to the atavistic tendencies that seem to serve them so well with the diet.
Anyway. Let’s get back to the portable nuclear generators and how fricking handy these will be if we can avoid the people that work at Jiffy Lube ever getting these in for service.. 
Answer to an Amory Lovins Disciple Who Believes in Conservation, Solar, Wind and Micropower : CleanTechnica
Hyperion Power Generation, for example, is focusing on a heating unit that is small enough to fit on the back of an over-the-road truck that can produce 70 MW of thermal energy constantly for several years. I spoke to the company founder for The Atomic Show Podcast and he explained how his company is establishing the supply chain needed to build 4,000 units that will be able to provide heat for about $3 per million BTU. By comparison, liquified natural gas sold in Japan last week for $20 per million BTU.
Posted by Haltse on September 8, 2008 – 10:31 pm
Filed under reality, science
Invertebrate Astronauts Make Space History | Wired Science from Wired.com
Erin was telling me that the “hardest” animal in existence could survive ,exposed, in the vacuum of space. Bullshit I said, the hardest animal is a pig with a flick knife and everybody knows that. Looks like I was wrong.
You’d never guess from looking at these clips that the millimeter-long
tardigrade is the world’s toughest animal, found from deep ocean to
Himalayan mountaintops, able to survive at a single degree above
absolute zero.
Tardigrade (Water Bear)
These things are so cute that there needs to be a plushie made in their honour. I look forward to sharing their DNA soon.
Posted by Haltse on August 18, 2008 – 11:19 pm
Erin with Teller. ( I love his voice, his writing’s rather good too)
I’ve been a fan of Penn and Teller since being exposed to them in the mid 80’s and one of the life goals, as far as I have plans, was to see them perform live. That’s another collective 40 years experience up on stage and if they were great in the 80’s they are now fucking amazing. During the intervening time I didn’t turn out to be an atheist as I always was one, as are all newborns it’s only the prevailing culture that tells a three year old that he’s a Christian child and sadly he’s doomed to burn in hell unless he thanks the zombie jew for his gift of ever lasting life, feeling sick yet?
Read More »
Posted by Haltse on August 23, 2007 – 2:16 pm
Seemingly I was not the only one with a misspent childhood. With access to guns, a scrapyard , welding gear and about any dangerous farmyard tool that have caught the unwary over the years I still wanted to make my toys more , well, interesting. So it’s with great joy that I find that there’s a book coming out devoted to the art of the plastic projectile launcher. I managed to get an 2 x 12 to stick into drywall using rubber bands x 3 and a massively and in retrospect a wasteful design that was more likely to me having a face full of bricks than forward motion. How long till the TSA bans blocks;)
Boing Boing: Forbidden Lego: dangerous Lego projects!
Forbidden Lego, a new book from No Starch Press, is a compendium of recipes for building anti-social Lego projects — looks like good, eye-removing fun.
Posted by Haltse on July 10, 2007 – 11:07 am
All we do is subject our official to is public ridicule and a cozy life in the private sector after a quiet period. China seem to take corruption just a tad more seriously. Oddly enough it’s better here, more democratic, e.g you bribe more people;)
China executes former food and drug safety chief
BEIJING – China executed the former head of its food and drug watchdog on Tuesday for approving untested medicine in exchange for cash, the strongest signal yet from Beijing that it is serious about tackling its product safety crisis.
Posted by haltse on June 3, 2007 – 1:37 pm
Filed under reality, science
The law of unintended consequences has better representation presently than we do as a race. It’s nice that we have a myriad of ways to attempt to keep living in the manner to which a certain part of the world has been accustomed but where the real work seems to be lacking in removing the need for the need to try to maintain a status quo that’s so brief a time in our history is weird.
How much energy we waste just to have people show up same time, same place to interact remotely with those they never see face to face based on what? a fear your employees will “steal” and goof off your time? Some will, and already do, because as long as we still keep seeing most things as jobs , things you -have- to be paid to do and ends up with us treating people with the level of contempt that causes.
Seriously, adults checking up on the bowel movements of those with a different job title leads to what benefit to the customer? Bad enough you have to suffer the “piss police” and their shoddy inaccurate tests ,that can’t tell a cold medicine from a drug , but grown people having to account for the time they took to shit? Until that mindset alters I’m not sure how much we gain by making the transport to and from the workplace archipelago more efficient.
Well that was a nice digression. New Scientist has an article that asks what next? Prior to us even getting into the efficient non polluting technologies ( least in then conventional sense) we’re basing most of this tech on rare and pretty much unknown reserves materials like platinum, tantalum and gallium the latter two rather useful in semi conductors and solar panel construction.
Earth’s natural wealth: an audit – earth – 23 May 2007 – New Scientist Environment
This could prove lucrative, but Prichard is motivated by something far more significant than the chance of a quick buck. Platinum is a vital component not only of catalytic converters but also of fuel cells – and supplies are running out. It has been estimated that if all the 500 million vehicles in use today were re-equipped with fuel cells, operating losses would mean that all the world’s sources of platinum would be exhausted within 15 years. Unlike with oil or diamonds, there is no synthetic alternative: platinum is a chemical element, and once we have used it all there is no way on earth of getting any more. What price then pollution-free cities?
Posted by haltse on March 31, 2007 – 11:40 am
Nikon | Universcale
Nikon’s total perspective flash,”Universescale” is missing the fairy cake but can take you all the way from femto meters to light years with interesting stops along the way. I still think HHGTTG put it best.
“Space,” it says, “is big. Really really big. You just wont believe how vastly, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean you think it’s a long way down the street to the chemist but that’s just peanuts to space,”
Posted by haltse on March 4, 2007 – 11:48 pm
Holy shit, has hell frozen over? Er no it doesn’t exist and besides it would need to exist first. Anyway it was the inaugaral meeting of the first non theist “church” , there’s still debate over using that part as a word, I mean from the Greek,”house of the lord” it seems to have an insurmountable issues. That being said I totally arsed up the recording due to unfamiliarity with the recorder (which I own so I am in the dumbass club tonight) It’s very early days yet I probably am going to assist with the web community and recording / podcasting the sermons and trying to get more people involved that way.
Come on in , we have no sin:) More on this soon but I don’t have the time tonight.
Posted by haltse on December 19, 2006 – 6:30 pm
My little flapping head “Ike” had to recalled once more from daycare, the day part is at least correct, for going rashy/ spotty over much of the body. It looks very much like a reaction to, not necessarily allergic, the amoxycillin. Dobh’s fine with it, I’m not that happy though I’ve never taken so much time off on an ad hoc basis since day care was involved it’s a shocking piss poor compromise that you either have to be
earn over 100k on one income
Be poor enough to have morons like me pay for your daycare ( thanks Janet)
If you are in the middle ground you end up needing to nearly double your salary to get back in real terms what you can get from the “state” for free, oh and pay no taxes doing it.
Rant coming.. ANGRY for once though I can bring up my child, someone other than myself , see I’m not a self centered capitalist I also wuv my family That nearly 50% of my salary goes to paying for food, for daycare,for medical care for just about every other need we have to provide for our kid is supplied gratis to others by the state holding a gun to our heads and “inviting” us to pay. It’s a shite state of affairs Tommy and all the fucking Red Rock in the world ain’t going to change it”
While I am in a pissed off mood this time.. at myself. I once passed my radio ham test, I must have known how to explain waves and propogation and various other bits of info that would make my current project easier. Today I realised that “just so” is useless as a way to pass info and that not understanding the why is pointless even if you know the how.. I feel an expensive educational solution coming on:)
Failing that I will continue to wallow in my ignorance.
Posted by haltse on December 11, 2006 – 5:44 pm
Only 5.5 million? of my “fellow countrymen” have escaped that nightmare of poor drink chilling, socialist bullshit nanny state , can’t mass produce a decent car without having an external company do it and home to the most pathetic games on the planet, CRICKET , SNOOKER And QUEING politely.
So where do we all escape to? Mainly USA, OZ, NZ and then Europe.
Posted by haltse on October 18, 2006 – 11:32 pm
News anchor wonders if the money from NASA buys us anything which as the commenters to their blog remind them of the benefits right under her nose.Firstly it’s nice that the comments are in place since they are harsher than you usually see talkback taking. I.e it’s not just name calling, though there are some really good ones,
The Bad Astronomer takes her down with some choice phrases
Look, I know a lot of people don’t know this stuff. I know, too, that NASA could do a better job of talking about this kind of stuff. I also know Ms. Couric is not a journalist, but c’mon, she plays one on TV. It’s simplicity itself to actually, y’know, do some research.
Love it. People make their voting choices based on these talking heads, I tell you we’re scroomed
*screwed and doomed.
Posted by haltse on October 12, 2006 – 12:13 am
Guardian Unlimited | Science | Pregnant women infected by cat parasite more likely to give birth to boys, say researchers
Counter intuitive.. Don’t cats need more crazy old ladies to keep them than men? Maybe we have to ask what the parasite wants?
Posted by haltse on August 28, 2006 – 12:18 am
Determinism – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Narrator: ( you know the guy with no fucking neck)
There are those that say that free will is an illusion and that it’s but a figment of the mind possesing a complete picture of the universe it is perceiving.
We “have” to have this or a god would be kinda #1 bastard of the ‘verse .( should one exist) to condemn people to the role of actors where the part you are studying for is baby with a hole in heart #2 or rape victim. Most godheads claim free will is a must for the very reason it’s kinda horrible to think that we’re mechanical animals truly damned by a very unoriginal sin , poor craftsmanship, to star in the soap opera that’s planet Earth. ( I’m rather undecided about the theories advanced by the other participants since it falls into my “no practical use” category.
So this was a topic around the campfire this weekend which included such joys as primate penis size, sperm competition, women that have fought off all the shackles of their faith apart from their model of how men/women should form relationships and whether a Doctor that refuses to inform rape victims of mitigating treatment to prevent pregnancy can be counted as a Doctor and not some Doctor like object.. kinda like a Taxi Driver that will get you to the airport but only by using right turns.
More on the no practical use. Even if determinism , of the seemingly fatalistic kind, was 100% true what action can one take? More dangerously ,should it be a total pile of horseshit, what harm would the inaction do to a person convinced by this argument? Later, I’m determined to get some rest.
