A LONG time ago

Haven't posted in like, forever. Just happened to have Blogger and a bunch of interesting websites all open at the same time.

Here ya go:

This guy built a steel house from scratch over 28 years and it's amazing.

This guy writes a great article about the importance and effectiveness of social media.
Specifically it's relevance to LOLcats, Political Activism, and Pornography.

Mission Motors: Mission One, electric motorcycle
This company is on the brink of producing the most kick-ass electric vehicle on the market. It's a brand new company run by some former Velocity11 and Ducati employees along with a bunch of Stanford and Dartmouth engineers. I hope the company takes off!

Ok, that's all for now. It's better than nothing.

Tidbits 2

Hey Folks, Just a quick update:

If you've spent time on message boards and the internet you might find this video from College Humor hilarious: Internet Commentator Business Meeting.

I also came across this amazing 9-10 minute BMX video. Unreal. This is the most ridiculous stuff I've seen done on a bike. Movie on PinkBike.

Enjoy!

Awesome

Great Argument

This YouTube Video lays out a very compelling argument for action against climate change. It's 9 minutes long, complete worth watching. I'm not really sure why it gets the title that it does. Seems like a somewhat hopeful video to me.

The Most Terrifying Video You'll Ever See.

Cannonball Run

Here's an interesting article from Wired online talking about one crazy, independently wealthy man's quest to break the record for driving from New York to LA. The previous record was set in 1983 at 32 hours 7 minutes for the 2,795 mile drive. I've driven across the country many many times, and generally we go quickly. 45 hours from Bishop, CA to Hanover, NH in a big 15 passenger van is pretty quick I thought. This guy will need to average almost 90mph in order to break the record. I personally would have tried to use a much less flashy car.

Wired: The Pedal-to-the-Metal, Totally Illegal, Cross Country Sprint for Glory

Bill Stone: Journey to the center of the Earth ... and beyond!

This guy Bill Stone is a total bad-ass. He invents underwater exploration devices in 2019 his most recent system will be sent to map the oceans of Europa while looking for life. In the second section of this Ted Talk he proposes a manned mining operation on the moon. He proposes that they send the mission without enough fuel to return, requiring them to successfully mine the fuel for the return trip from the moon. He makes this proposal to the TED conference, which is full of extremely wealthy and influential people. In front of all of them he proclaims that he will lead this expedition. He is deadly serious. This guy is like some crazy sci-fi hero super-scientist. It's truly inspiring. I'm not sure all his ideas are perfect but I think he's likely to influence the creation of a moon-based rocket fuel mining operation. I'm not sure his idea of launching without sufficient fuel for return is such a good idea; I'm not even sure if it needs to be a manned mission. Still, an amazing talk. Check it out.

Bill Stone: Journey to the center of the Earth ... and beyond!

Tid bits

"bush makes surprise visit to work" from the onion http://www.theonion.com/content/news/bush_makes_surprise_visit_to_work

"how to be your own phone company" from sci am
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=3D964001-E7F2-99DF-36CD82E1F9ED0C84&chanID=sa003

10 ways the world could end stephen petranek
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/167

Disgust

Have you seen this video yet? "UF student tasered at John Kerry Speach". Near the end of a question and answer session John Kerry calls on a student with a question. He steps to the microphone and spends about 30 seconds setting up his question. He recommends a book called "Armed Madhouse" by Greg Palast, which claims that Kerry won the presidential election of 2004. Kerry says he's already read it, and wants to know if the student has a question. A police officer taps him on the shoulder and says something to him. From his response it seems that the police officer has asked him to stop talking. From here things denigrate. The student manages to ask three questions before the cops drag him off. I've paraphrased them below:

1. Considering the amount of fraud and confusion as outlined in "Armed Madhouse" how could you concede the election on the same day?
2. If you're against invading Iran why not impeach Bush?
3. Were you and Bush both members of the same secret society at Yale?

He is forcibly removed from the microphone by the police officers as he asks the last question. This is just absolutely wrong. The student was allowed to speak for one minute 30 seconds before he was cut off and escorted away from the microphone. In the background you can see a man in a suit speaking with a police officer when the student first starts rambling, and you see this same man move his hand across his throat making a "cut him off" type gesture which immediately precedes the physical removal of the student. As the student is removed he is confused and resists the removal. He asks loudly what are you arresting me for? He struggles and is eventually subdued by 3 or 4 police officers. While on the floor he continues to shout and struggle and then he is shocked with a taser.

I'm amazed, but there are actually a lot of people who are siding against the student. They say things like "He's annoying" or "He had it coming". You know what? Carrot Top is annoying, but we can't get the police to taser him. They say "He was grandstanding and wanted it to happen." That may be true, but it is still not a valid reason to prevent his free-speech or forcibly remove him.

I listen to call in shows on NPR like Forum and Talk of the Nation. Those hosts do an excellent job handling callers with rambling questions. Why couldn't Senator Kerry handle this? How could he allow this to go on right in front of him? I'm really unimpressed by how Kerry has handled the situation and am interested to see how this all turns out.

Light Pollution

Great article in the New Yorker about light pollution. Here's an excerpt:

"In Galileo’s time, nighttime skies all over the world would have merited the darkest Bortle ranking, Class 1. Today, the sky above New York City is Class 9, at the other extreme of the scale, and American suburban skies are typically Class 5, 6, or 7. The very darkest places in the continental United States today are almost never darker than Class 2, and are increasingly threatened. For someone standing on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon on a moonless night, the brightest feature of the sky is not the Milky Way but the glow of Las Vegas, a hundred and seventy-five miles away. To see skies truly comparable to those which Galileo knew, you would have to travel to such places as the Australian outback and the mountains of Peru. And civilization’s assault on the stars has consequences far beyond its impact on astronomers. Excessive, poorly designed outdoor lighting wastes electricity, imperils human health and safety, disturbs natural habitats, and, increasingly, deprives many of us of a direct relationship with the nighttime sky, which throughout human history has been a powerful source of reflection, inspiration, discovery, and plain old jaw-dropping wonder."

Read the article: "The Dark Side" by David Owen

Rope Robot from 60 AD

Here's a neat little article and video about a very simple two wheeled "robot" that can be "programmed" to move forward and backward, and turn left and right, based on the way strings are wound around the axles of each wheel. The video makes it pretty clear. Kind of a neat simple machine.

"A Programmable Robot from 60 AD"

Virtual Ecomonies

This article in the New York Times Magazine is an interesting look into "gold farming" where players of the game World of Warcraft gather gold and other valuables in the game which are then bought by other players too impatient to earn it themselves, creating real value for virtual goods. As a result people are playing video games for a living in China. An entire industry has grown up around playing online games to harvest gold. This article discusses how this affects the gaming community at large and also describes a variety of tactics that have been employed to make a living playing video games. Interesting reading. Enjoy!

The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer

Quick link

Here's an interesting article from Scientific American: "Can Climate Intervention Turn Down the Heat?" Some researchers from Carnegie Mellon created a climate model of Earth and observed the affects of global warming in over time. They then introduced climate intervention techniques such as satellites supporting mirrors or particles dispersed in the sky to reflect the sun's rays.
They made the assumption that whatever intervention technique was chosen the affect would be uniform across the globe. That seems like an unrealistic assumption, but without that assumption it would've been pretty hard to model, so I can understand why they did it. Anyway, read the article for their interesting results.

The future

A theory I've had for a while is that in the future we will mine the garbage dumps of today. All of the materials that we throw away today will become more and more scarce in the future. Eventually we'll pull all of the concentrated resources out of the planet. There will be higher concentrations of precious metals in our garbage dumps, than in the ground. As these resources become more scarce they will become more expensive. Eventually it will become cheaper to mine resources from garbage dumps of the past, than from standard ore deposits. I've been thinking this for a long time, and it's good to read an interesting article on the subject. Read this article. It's a photo-essay documenting electronics waste recycling in China. It's mostly pictures but there are some words mixed in, including:

Computers are much more than just wires and plastic; they are also a source of highly valuable metals, including gold, copper, and aluminum. One ton of computer scrap contains more gold than 17 tons of gold ore. Circuit boards can be 40 times richer in copper than typical copper ore. For this reason, workers in e-waste dumps in the southern Chinese city of Guiyu carefully sort the computers’ hardware and melt down the most valuable parts.

Mars

This article talks a little bit about exploration on Mars. It's pretty amazing. Three years after both Spirit and Opportunity completed their primary mission, they continue to make new and interesting discoveries. One of Spirit's six wheels no longer turns. As it drags that wheel it churns the soil yielding some exciting discoveries including further signs of ancient water possibly existing on Mars. It's a quick read, and it's pretty impressive to realize that these rovers are still being driven around remotely, on another planet, three years after their planned usefulness. Amazing.

Laughing is better than crying

Every once in a while the onion delivers up a great article. Check this one out:

Middle East Conflict Intensifies As Blah Blah Blah, Etc. Etc.

"In an attempt to increase public support of whatever the fuck it is he thinks he's doing, President Bush trotted out the same old whoop-de-do you've heard over and over at a solemn-yet-resolute speech attended by soldiers, or religious leaders, or firemen, or some mix of ethnic-looking people from one of those countries."

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/middle_east_conflict_intensifies

An end to oil?

Whilst in beautiful Utah this spring I bumped into an old friend from college. She's living in Boulder working on a PhD in Geophysics, after becoming disillusioned by her job working for an oil company. It was fun to catch up and talk. At some point during the day of climbing she mentioned this crazy woman named Leslie that would climb at Rifle. Leslie would use aid-climbing gear to work on sport routes by herself since no one would belay her for the length of time she needed to work on the moves -lashing herself to these routes for days and constantly telling everyone about the progress that she was (not) making towards sending the route. But apparently, she pales in comparison to the man who has a crush on her. The man who invented the electric windmill car. The man that could bring an end to oil. That's all they would tell me. He has a crush on Leslie, and he invented the electric windmill car. Google it. Actually, don't Google it. I've done that for you. Here, just click this: http://www.inventor-warp-speed.com/ and then after that, you'll probably want to know what the hell is going on.

This article from Total Drek really gives you a nice tour of Greg's website and offers up some interesting excerpts. It's a good introduction to Greg, and a nice article overall, but I have to disagree with some of their conclusions as to the feasibility of an electric windmill car. I think they've missed an important facet. First of all, as Total Drek stated details are "sketchy". I agree with them having completed my own research on the topic and come up with little information. Though, I should state that by "research" I mean: "downloaded one of Greg's 30 minute poems that Total Drek recommended and iTunes happened to start playing it randomly while I was out getting a burrito." I got back just in time for Greg to talk a little bit about the electric windmill car, his love for Leslie and an accident at a construction site. From what I could gather it's obvious that Greg lives a very special life. He is closely monitored by the government (and Leslie (maybe)) via hidden cameras. All of his life is recorded on video tape by the government, and this is part of what makes his claims to the electric windmill car so bullet-proof. When he invented the electric windmill car, he ran home and told it to the hidden camera behind his mirror. So, the government observers have a copy of the video tape of him inventing the electric windmill car. That proves it. I'm not sure what "it" is, but I'm sure you can define "it" in a way that makes the preceding sentence true.

So anyway, I listened to about 6 minutes of the tail end of his poem, flipped through a few links on his webpage and decided I was qualified to write this article. Details are sketchy. Details are sketchy, but I agree with Total Drek when they say:

"The basic idea appears to be that as the car drives, the windmills will turn, generating electricity to recharge the batteries. Thus, one need only charge the car once and it will be able to drive forever more with the assistance of its windmills."

And I agree with them again when they say:

"[Y]ou will have to spend power to get power out of the windmills, and the amount you spend will exceed the amount recovered by the windmills because of friction. So, far from eliminating our need for fossil fuel, the electric windmill car would actually increase it."

But, does that really mean that an electric windmill car is impossible? I think we're both missing something. Greg is special, and he knows special things that we can't know. Maybe, due to some weird synergistic twelfth dimensional coupling affect, when you put windmills on cars friction "flows" "backwards". Maybe if the wind blows on the car while it's parked, and the windmills have some method of efficiently storing that wind energy it could power the car. I'm pretty sure that's impossible, but hey, Greg knows a lot of things I don't. Maybe these windmills run on sunlight? It's gotta work somehow! I mean, look at the energy and passion that he's put into the webpage, into his poems. That electric windmill car has got to be real in some sense of the word. Greg knows things that we don't. What a crazy world.

April 1st

Google TiSP is a new service from Google that allows for free internet access through your home's plumbing. Seems like you'd still need to be in a large municipal area. I don't think this would work for people with septic systems. The graphic alone is pretty funny. Check out the PHD with the snorkel in the sewer connecting your flushed cable for you. Awesome. I Hope someone I know goes for this!

Struck a Nerve

This comic really struck a nerve with me today. This week has been hell so far. Every morning I get in a bit before 9 and by about 12:30PM I've almost beaten back the email, voice-mail, and phone calls. But it's like I'm out in the middle of the wilderness in a blizzard and I'm shoveling snow. It falls continuously; just slightly slower than I can shovel. So, if I shovel like hell I can clear a small spot for a while. Of course, I'm shoveling frantically because if I can keep the spot clear for a little while then I'll be able to build a fire and stay warm (and melt a little snow too). But of course, if I stop shoveling to eat lunch or go to the bathroom then the snow will accumulate and it'll take me a while to catch up. So, anyway, I'm fed up with email; this comic made me laugh.

By the way, I use this great program called iBert to view today's episode of Dilbert by Scott Adams. iBert is a nice application for Mac OS X of course, you could just check out his cartoon on the web (you still need a web connection for iBert) but for some reason I like iBert better.

And also, I'm going on vacation. Hopefully leave tomorrow afterwork. Sleep in the sierras somewhere, arrive in SLC in the evening on Friday to crash at Mike and Cheryl's, then drive the last couple hours down to Joe's Valley for some bouldering and camping out. Just me and Khola. Should be a very relaxing trip. Be back on the first.

The internet is still a wonderful place

Slashdot just directed me to this article about Michael Crook. Pretty creepy guy. It's nice to see the internet stood up to his ridiculous posturing and served him what he deserved.

Mr Deity

I think it was Justin who turned me on to mrdeity. Pretty funny parody of God as a modern day narcissistic creative project manager. We get a backstage view of the creation and other day to day activities of the deity. The stories bend time, blending the biblical with the contemporary producing some really funny situations. The acting and production quality of these videos is very impressive. There are 8 episodes right now. Each is a few minutes long. I'd recommend watching them in order.