Saturday, January 24th, 2009
Colleges turn french fry oil into fuel
Students have begun making bio diesel fuel by converting used cooking oil from the dining hall.
Overcoming Information Overload
Daniel Tammet: “Our world is generating more information with more resources and technology now than at any time in history: through TV and radio programs, cell phones, magazines, email, websites, blogs, and other media… Being overwhelmed by a continuous maelstrom of information can be just as damaging to our minds as having too little of it…”
Dark flow: Proof of another universe?
For most of us the universe is unimaginably vast. But not for cosmologists. They feel decidedly hemmed in. No matter how big they build their telescopes, they can only see so far before hitting a wall. Approximately 45 billion light years away lies the cosmic horizon, the ultimate barrier because light beyond it not has not had time to reach us.
Sweden’s Fix for Banks: Nationalize Them
The Swedes have a simple message to the Americans: Bite the bullet and nationalize. With Sweden’s banks effectively bankrupt in the early 1990s, a center-right government pulled off a rapid recovery that led to taxpayers making money in the long run.
War against ivory trade takes to the sea
It’s the “other” ivory. And this week, conservationists in London stepped in to stop its sale. It might not be as well known as the stuff that comes from elephants, but the ivory from the narwhal, the tusked whale of the northern seas, is just as much in demand – and with that demand comes a threat just as severe as the one elephants face.
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Thursday, January 22nd, 2009
Obama wants to know: Why open source?
President Barack Obama is a smart guy. Where others zig, he zags. It’s perhaps not surprising, then, that he’s been asking around about the benefits of open source, according to Sun Chairman Scott McNealy, who has been asked by President Obama to author a white paper on the benefits the U.S. government can derive from open source.
10 Web Sites That Will Matter in 2009
You’ve probably never heard of many of them, but chances are you’ll be using some of these Web sites by the end of this year.
Obama inauguration marks new chapter for digital media
On March 4, 1901, a lone cameraman in the employ of Thomas A. Edison was dispatched to capture the swearing in of William McKinley. To posterity he delivered a total of 44 seconds of grainy footage showing a white-haired man on the Capitol steps solemnly, if indistinctly, raising his right hand.
Living free with Linux: 2 weeks without Windows
Can a dedicated Windows user make it for two weeks using only Linux? Preston Gralla tried it and lived to tell this tale.
10 Online Learning Tools for Students
Second semester has started and many students went back to college. If you are one of them check out this list of tools, it might help you with your studies. All applications are web based, simple to use and free.
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Saturday, November 15th, 2008
Dumb Eco-Questions You Were Afraid To Ask
New Scientist offers the definitive guide to everything you wanted to know about being green but were too embarrassed to ask.
How Fast Can Obama Fix US Environment Policy?
For eight years the US has been seen as a global outlier on climate issues. Now, with just 12 months to go until the world decides on a new Kyoto protocol, it is catch-up time for president-elect Barack Obama. What can he reasonably achieve in that time?
Unhappy People Watch TV, Happy People Read/Socialize
A new study by sociologists at the University of Maryland concludes that unhappy people watch more TV, while people who describe themselves as very happy spend more time reading and socializing. The study appears in the December issue of the journal Social Indicators Research.
20 Great Online Image Editors
The online image editing space has grown rapidly in the past year, providing great free and subscription-based options for users of all levels. These well-rounded services let you import images from your social networks, touch up photos, promote your work, and more.
Consumer Confidence is Plummeting
This is the dilemma that 30 years of Reaganomics (the real Reaganomics — keeping the economy overstimulated with huge deficits and irresponsible consumer borrowing — not the fantasy Reaganomics of government run like a family and tax cuts that pay for themselves) has left us with. So what do we do?
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Tuesday, October 14th, 2008
I am a registered Democrat. Love me if you are a Democrat, hate me if you are a Republican. I don’t care.
I am actually more of a socially liberal / fiscally conservative Independent. I guess that would make me one of those coveted swing voters. I’m probably not, because I have never voted Republican in my life, but just the same, I would like to be one of those coveted people.
I was just reading about our two presidential candidates for 2008, again. I am pretty psyched about this race. I think the Democrats have a good thing going and, if what I am reading is true, the Republicans need some help.
Let me just say this off the bat…I don’t dislike John McCain. Actually, I didn’t before the election. He is starting to get under my skin though. I think I never really disliked him because I never really saw much of him. I just saw what was on the news. I always thought his heart was in the right place. The more I see this guy, the more he is starting to annoy me. I think it’s because (in my opinion), he has zero charisma. If I hear “friends…” one more time. Also, for the life of me, I have no idea why in the world he is bringing up William Ayers. Hardly anyone knows who this person is and, right now, hardly anyone cares. Perhaps if this William fella was in the news for the past 3 years for doing something terrible and had some more name recognition, there would be some impact. But seriously, wasting valuable air time on a no-name dude like this is…well, wasting valuable air time. There are bigger issues at hand.
I have long thought that presidential politics was just a popularity contest. I mean, who in the world knows what these people are proposing? It seems to be all about style. If someone is a good speaker, they can pretty much say, “I will rob you blind” and still get voted in. I mean 95% of these people and a $5000 tax credit for these people…who knows what is going on? Seriously, about 5% of the public really cares.
Can you really vote for someone based on what they say they are going to do while in office? Remember what the current president said during all his debates with Al Gore? Small government, follow the rule of law, war as a last resort, fiscally conservative…oh man. I mean, the last 8 years was kind of like winning the lottery and getting your car repossessed in one fell swoop.
As much as I hate wedge issues, they seem to play a large part in who gets voted in to office. Abortion, religion, gay rights, immigration…all of them play a very weighted role in who gets to live in the White House for the next 4 years. It is a real shame, but the facts are the facts.
I can say to a McCain supporter who pays too much in taxes, “Yeah, but Obama says he is going to lower taxes on those who make less than $250,000 a year.” They might say back to me, “McCain is pro-life.” I guess they are voting for McCain. No one can really say whether or not these issues should be important to people, they just are. I keep thinking that when voting for the next president, you are voting for someone to fill a spot in the Executive Branch of government. I am not sure what gay rights has to do with the Executive Branch, but if you oppose gay rights, you oppose gay rights. Ain’t nobody going to change your mind. Well, the president does get to nominate justices for the Supreme Court…hmmm.
I would like to hear what is going through the minds of people out there. I am going to go out on a limb here and tell you what concerns me in this election and I hope you will do the same. I don’t care who you are voting for, I just want you to tell me your concerns. What issues make you vote for who you plan on voting for?
My concerns are (in order of importance): environment, economy, the war(s), taxes, health care, our standing in the world and having some honesty back in government.
There you have it. Anyone else?
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Tuesday, July 29th, 2008
Wind Power Superhighway for West Texas
Texas likes to do everything big, including wind farms and investing in clean energy. The states has been given the thumbs up for a $4.9 billion plan to set up transmission lines to carry the wind power generated in West Texas to surrounding urban areas.
When Good Science Goes Bad: 3 Ideas that Went Really Wrong
The history of scientific discovery is full of missteps. Sometimes iffy ideas lead to stronger theories. Other times, a good idea becomes a bad idea. And still others seem like they were always bad ideas.
What to Do if You Encounter a Bear
“Run for your life†may seem like common sense if a grizzly approaches you, but such action is highly unlikely to foil an attack.
A Modest Eco-Friendly Stimulus Proposal: Cash For Clunkers
Princeton economist Alan Blinder proposes that ‘Cash for Clunkers’ programs under which the government buys up some of the oldest, most polluting vehicles and scraps them, should be expanded nationwide.
The Physics-Defying Promise of Endless Cheap Energy
An entrepreneur with $60 million in venture funding says he’s found an endless source of cheap energy. Trouble is, it violates the laws of quantum physics.
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Tuesday, October 30th, 2007
Laura and I were talking last night about wind energy, the government and how people do not want to solve the energy problem.
Paul and I had a little back-and-forth over the weekend about wind turbines in residential areas. I was against it and he was for it. The reason I was against it is because of the first photo he displayed in his post. I thought that something like this was inappropriate for a residential area. Then, I did a little research and noticed that certain companies are making residential wind turbines much sleeker in their look and use. I am now on board. Apparently, with the right height and wind speed, one of these turbines can supply a whole house with electricity.
Here is our (well, my) reason why anyone with any amount of power simply doesn’t want to really make any changes when it comes to energy…If the government wanted to solve the problem, they would have “gently forced” every property owner in the country to erect a small wind turbine on their property. I know, I know, that sounds strange, but think about it. The government can even pay for it. They got the taxpayers to pay billions and billions of dollars to go over to Iraq and…well, you know. Think about if the American government used that same money to purchase and have installed one wind turbine (or solar system) per property owner. Can you even imagine how much oil and coal that would save from being burned? We wouldn’t have to go over and…well, you know…the Middle East anymore.
Why is it that the only thing being offered right now are tax breaks that no one knows about? I hear more about “Barney” than I do about renewable energy incentives, and I don’t even like Barney.
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Sunday, June 3rd, 2007
Listen, I lean to the left and I lean to the right. Who the heck knows. Sometimes the Democrats make such stupid moves they seem like Republicans and vice versa. I once heard a caller on a radio talk show call them all a bunch of “Rebublicrats.”
I don’t know much about Newt Gingrich, besides the fact that he was Speaker of the House from 1995 to 1999 and that he co-authored the 1994 Contract with America. Actually, reading up on him on his Wikipedia page, he mostly stands against everything I stand for.
But…a BIG but…you have to admit that the guy is smart. A few weeks ago, he took on John Kerry in an environmental debate. I didn’t see the debate, but I heard that Newt went out there and agreed with Kerry on a good number of issues. John? What happened? I executed a similar maneuver back during my college days in Binghamton. I wasn’t even a skilled debater (like you are). I was the first to speak, so I went up there and laid out my points. It was a narrow topic, so I laid out the opponents points too and why they were nonsense…and I heard their steam ever so silently being released. They had nothing. Couldn’t you have predicted what Newt was going to do and prepare for that? It’s kind of like preparing for a fight so much that when you swing at the guy, he just steps to the left and you punch the wall behind him. He walks away laughing.
On my drive yesterday to the local nursery, I heard an interview with Newt on NPR. Newt was quite eliquently talking up his program called, “American Solutions.” We was very casually letting us know there he and his team have thought up a good number of solutions to the problems that plague our country. He left them open to both Democrats and Republicans. He’s like, “Hey, here they are. Let’s all work on them together.” The interviewer kept badgering him about if he was going to run or not and he kept telling her that he may if the field needs a boost. The interviewer was questioning that it may be too late at some point and Newt replied that if the time wasn’t right, he simply wouldn’t run.
I have to tell you, the guy makes sense. What is it with the current Presidential Candidates? Why can’t they seem to put together a nice coherent message and promote it? Don’t they realize that Newt is sneaking up behind them and just may take the whole bunch of them down? Boy, he sure seemed to have a catchy program title back in 1994 and sure seems to have another one now.
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TYSM I read this one and decided to try it out on my ACER (See, its not always HP with the problems)...