Hydropower in Northern CA.

Well it has been a while since I’ve written anything here; it’s not that I stopped thinking up stuff it’s just that I’ve stopped having time to write it. Right now I am on an airplane so I’ve got nothing but time ;)

Those of you who keep up with kind of stuff are surely cringing, since while the people of N Cal are in favor of clean energy they are not in favor of dams. However, not all hydro power comes from dams. Twice a day San Francisco bay has a 6+ knot (7.5 mph) current as the tide goes in and out, which represents a very reliable source of energy. While it would be nice to build massive tunnels and a more traditional hydro plant the land would cost to much and in order to get maximum advantage the water would have to be flowed from very far back in the bay which would put salt water into traditionally fresh water wetlands, so the environmental impact would prevent it from ever being built. Now there are low speed reversible turbines that could be put in the channels to collect energy, but they might obstruct shipping traffic. There is one place that seems perfect along the bridge pilings. Think about it, you can use the build to run the wire out to the turbines, the pilings increase the velocity of the water so you can get more energy (if you can compensate for the increased turbulence) and ships avoid the pilings at all costs. I am on a plane so I can’t calculate how much energy is available but it is likely enough to warrant at least a pilot project, since most importantly the source of energy wouldn’t be visible so and invisible is the most important requirement.
The Cape Cod Channel would be a great place for the tunnel method since the difference in tidal heights on either side of the channel can be as much as 6 feet. Every day, twice a day water would be forced through the tunnel, to turn a very large but low speed turbine. If nothing else the tidal difference could drive a hydraulic ram, which would pump a much smaller amount of water through a R.O. membrane making fresh water.
Last but not least the Army Corp of Engineers could use a much smaller turbine to both make energy and maintain the Mississippi river. Currently there are areas that have too strong a current and they are trying to slow down to prevent scour, (which moves sediment down stream) by channeling part of the flow through turbines they could reduce the current and by controlling the load on the generator they could control how much they reduced the current. They could also inject air down stream of the turbine to help oxygenate the water which could to reduce the NOx load. (The high turbulence would help the oxygen dissolve in the water.)
I am aware that I haven’t discussed debris screening and a host of other issues, but those issues are too complex for musings at 36,000 feet.

The future of science in America

This week I read an article about how Chinese scientists trained in America are starting to go home. Ok this is not a huge surprise because of all the nationalities that do their graduate or post graduate training here, the Chinese have always been the most likely to go back. It has to do with their culture, strong family ties, and weird sense of nationalism. (I say weird because most dislike the government but love the country.) However this article was about that established Chinese scientists are going home, lured by massive amounts of funding, to shiny new institutes and universities. Ok that is still fine they go home, but the cost of getting them back is much higher. What is concerning is that China, Singapore, etc are all trying to lure non-native scientists to these same blank check funded, shiny new institutes and universities. Previously many scientists of European decent were hesitant to go live in Singapore (a country where spitting on the sidewalk is punishable by caning) but as NSF and NIH budgets got cut, and funding got harder to find that is starting to change. The brain drain is starting to reverse; innovative, well trained scientists are leaving the US, but these countries still largely send their youth to the US to get training.
I love my country, the USA is the greatest country on earth but we are no where near as good at planning ahead as the Chinese. (Think about it, they’ve been a civilization for thousands of years, so they have practical experience with plans that take generations to complete. (Look at the Asian hobby of bonsai, these trees take a lifetime to reach a pleasing form, and may continue to develop for hundreds of years. That takes patience.) The USA is almost 230, that means at most 8 generations have been born American’s, and it was less than a 100 years ago that we obtained world power status. All of America’s grand plans are on time scales of months; projects that take a decade or more to show that they are justifiable are nearly unheard of. Why do we want everything fast? Because we were young and growth could occur quickly, so there was no reason to be patient, we were a nation of limitless possibility. America has always relied on immigration to keep the country young, so as long as that keeps up nothing will change.

Ok so why am I worried? China’s education system is lacking, it doesn’t teach creativity, so while it produces vast numbers of well educated people, it doesn’t produce innovators. That is why China has enjoyed a great deal success in manufacturing goods designed else where, but it hasn’t been able to bring the whole process full in house. (With all the monetary gains that brings.) The Chinese are wonderful at evolutionary improvements (the cheaper, and faster), but are lacking in revolutionary improvements (the new and different.) The scary part is that China knows this, and is trying to fix the deficiency. How? First they sent their best and brightest to other countries to complete their educations. For many they learned about the revolutionary work being done else, so they could bring the information back home and put it to use. Those were the easy ones to get back home, since the Western scientific machine saw them as a source of cheap, hard working labor, and offered them little chance for advancement after their training was complete. Now the real gold was those who could adapt and think creatively. They flourished in the West and became part of the machine that created them, and began to train others. So to get them back China had to basically buy them back, and if they committed the resources to buy back their own people why not get anyone who will come? Having these resources with in its borders means that China can now begin to innovate on its own, and train some of the next generation of scientists without sending them abroad. Sure China will still send some of the brightest abroad for training since there is still much to be learned from the West, but the most likely to be stars will be trained at home. (This reduces the chances of losing good people.) (It is worth noting that the Chinese aren’t doing this just in the sciences, but in business too.)
(A brief side note, many scientists regardless of ethnic origin are not innovators, the number of people who are willing to risk it all to change the world is very small, our education system is just better suited to fostering that sprit. Also, there is a great deal of need evolutionary improvement, so far more people are and should be involved at that phase, then in creation. However, I’ve covered this all before, I just wanted to be clear I wasn’t being down on 1/6 of the world’s population.)
Unlike Japan after the Black Ships arrived, China is controlling its Westernization, since Westernization caused a civil war in Japan. (It almost caused two civil wars, but the changes in the 50’s and 60, never really resulted in open violence.) China is remaking itself into a self contained superpower, much like America was in the 50s.
Now what can America do to ensure that it doesn’t suffer as China grows? Well America needs to replicate China’s drive to foster innovation. We need to produce home grown scientists and engineers, by teaching the sciences with the same vigor we have for the sports programs. We need to, as a nation, realize that the money spent on the NIH, DOE, DARPA, NSF, etc is not wasted, it is invested, and that the interest is seen in improves in our way our of life, be that monetary or medical. We can’t rely on private funding for science because private funding often is given with a nondisclosure clause attached. A good start would be increasing the NIH and NSF budgets at a rate to track inflation, great start would be a 10% increase a year for a couple years, and perhaps a couple major grants to create shiny new institutes to lure talent back to the US (or at least fund new buildings to replace the ones built during the growth years of the 50s, that are falling down.) We can’t stop training people from other countries, and we can’t stop them from going home but we can stop them from wanting to go home. We need to get rid of our sense of entitlement and get back to the can do sprit that made this nation great. If we don’t some day soon you might be reading this on a computer that wasn’t just built in China, but designed there too. Ha nai dai!

Is Bin Laden Dead?

There is currently a very sketchy report that Bin Laden died of Typhoid about a month ago. If this report turns out to be true the intelligence communities of the Western World will have a massive celebration, but not for the reasons you might think. Sure Bin Laden is dead, and that was their goal, the reason for the party is how he died. If he died of Typhoid in a cave somewhere he died as a human, wasting away from sickness. This is not a good death from the stand point of the propaganda people at Al Qaeda. They wanted him to die a martyr, firing his AK47/74 cutting down swaths of infidel fighters, then when he ran out of ammo since the odds were overwhelming, he’d take grenades and run into the enemy lines to a glorious death, taking as many of the enemy as he could into the afterlife. His death as a martyr for his cause would become legend; it would be made into comic books or whatever, that would inspire generations of young men to join the jihad and die for the “glorious cause”. Even if Bin Laden was captured alive he could still be a symbol for the movement, since his trial would take months and he would a constant presence in the media, as he “defiantly resisted all efforts to break him and turn him from the cause”. However, if he died of an illness that caused him to waste away over months that could have been cured by drugs you can get at a pet store in America, he did not die a warrior or a martyr, Bin Laden died as a feeble, old man with terrible diarrhea. This death is more than those who fight against terror and insurgence could have hoped for! Unfortunately Bin Laden probably isn’t dead, he’s probably hiding in some cave in Pakistan. Worse still unless Al Qaeda announces Bin Laden is dead, with whatever story they makeup about how he died, no one who counts will believe he’s dead.
Never forget the fight against terror is more about hearts and minds then it is about bombs and bullets. To fight a belief, be it Muslim fundamentalism in the Middle East or racism at home, is the most difficult task that can be undertaken, since the timeline for the war isn’t measured in months it is measured in generations.

Port security: a novel cargo scanner

One of the biggest problems in guarding America's borders is screening all the cargo that comes into or goes out of America’s ports. I checked and some container ships can carry 15,000 of those ubiquitous 53’ long containers and most of the ships are unloaded in <18 hours and much of the cargo must immediately be put on trucks or trains an sent to their final destination. The port of LA, alone handles nearly 4 million containers a year, so the volume of goods staggering. How then do you check every container for illegal or other questionable items? Visual inspection is out since there isn’t time or resources. Some people have suggested that each container be scanned with terahertz waves (think super-radar) or back scattered X-rays (which are gentle and safe-ish.) Both of these solutions require the cargo to be on a truck and hold still for minutes at a time to be scanned, so they are also difficult to deploy. My idea is different, I suggest making those massive gantry cranes that load and unload the ships into sensor platforms. Here is how it would work: When the containers are picked up they deflect (twist under their own weight) which causes them to breath out and in. So by mounting a radiological, biological and chemical sensor platform on the edges of the spreader bar where it can sample this air, every container can be inspected. The air in the containers enriches itself for the chemical signature of the contents during transport, and the containers are reinforced while on the ship to reduce deflection, so turn over of air during shipping is minimal. Since every container goes on and comes off the ship in a set order and the contents are documented, if a container “needs” additional inspection the sensor platform can radio the customs official, or perhaps every container gets an encrypted write once RFID tag, which is scanned as the containers leave the port. Since some cargo will be things we need to watch, but might actually be ok, the platform can save a record of what it scanned for further analysis, like those filter pads at the airport, on a time stamped spool or something. Then at the shift change of the crane operator the Customs or other HLS official can change it out, and send it to a lab for analysis. A crane mounted sensor platform will not reduce the need for visual inspections but will help better identify containers, which might be suspect, so resources could be better utilized. Better still the idea can be sold to the ports and shipping companies as a way to speed up the processing of cargo as well as identify cargo that has spoiled, broken or been tampered with during shipping.

Ads in the age of TIVO

A friend of mine just sent me an interesting link.

It's for an ad that gets the message across no matter how fast you fast forward.
While I don't claim to have been the first to have this idea as she pointed out in her email I posted the idea on here back in May of '05. Still I am waiting for ads that convey a "different" message when fast forwarded through. Semi-subliminal ads will change advertising forever, at least until they are regulated too.

Wise or stupid? You decide.

Sanity is the refuge of those not strong enough to face reality.

Pigs can fix the grid

The kind of pig I am talking about is not the kind of pig that bacon comes from but instead the kind of pig that is a sensor and maintenance platform used for pipeline maintenance (like BP should have used if they wanted to keep the Purdoe Bay pipelines from corroding to the point of failure.) Ok I am not here to judge, I am here to suggest.
The new kind of pig is for the power distribution industry to help them maintain the “grid”. This pig would perform a high wire act crawling along the steel high tension lines that transmit power at 100s of KV over long distance. It could use ultrasound to check the lines for corrosion (rust), since I didn’t miss speak, the lines on those massive towers are not copper or aluminum they are steel (as in an alloy of iron and carbon) because while steel is not as good a conductor as Cu or Al it is much cheaper and stronger. The pig which would actually be a robot could also be used to impregnate the lines with anticorrosive agents to help them last longer and even better if the anticorrosive agent was also conductive increase the amount of power the lines could carry. If the pig makers were ambitions people they would also put a knitting mechanism on the pig since by knitting on more wire the transmission capacity of the lines could be increased while the line was still energized (which can’t be done by traditional means).
Even if it is impractical or illegal to increase the carrying capacity of high tension lines by adding more conductors, simply wrapping them in fiberglass or Kevlar ribbon could strengthen them immensely. By strengthening the lines they could be prevented from sagging and breaking under high current (or wind) loads, which makes the whole grid more efficient. This would allow the grid to expand its capacity, without major upgrades, especially if more conductors were added and then the lines were wrapped in reinforcing ribbon.
Before I end let’s come back to the anticorrosive agent real fast. Since every one is so hot on nanomaterials now, if the anticorrosive contained reducing agents and nanocrystaline metal particles then the heat of the tiny arcs caused by microfractures in the lines could actually be used to repair the lines at a microscopic level, by melting and filling in the factures. (Actually crystalline material even nanocrystaline is bad, it would be best to actually to make the metal particles into amorphous solids, so they could extend and join the crystal lattices on either side of the fracture.)

The coming lithium rush

Ok lithium rush doesn’t have the same power as say a gold rush... However, that is my prediction, with all the energy concerns, hybrid cars, cordless tools, cell phones, etc lithium (as in lithium ion batteries) will see a huge surge in demand. The Chinese have recently started a big lithium operation, but America will want its own source since cheap lithium is not only good for the alternative energy people, it is a matter of national security. Guess where we can get lithium? As a byproduct of oil extraction, since lithium occurs in brine that is mixed with the gas and oil.

Lithium extraction actual represents a great way to use renewable energy to get something very valuable for next to nothing. A wind generator is used to drive a compressor which injects nitrogen or runs a pump to inject water into an oil well that is only producing water, then a secondary well is used to extract the strong brine solution at high pressure. The natural pressure of the well drives the water through an RO membrane, making the brine solution even more concentrate. (The “waste water” is actually drinkable, and can be sold to the local farmers or communities, or reinjected.) The supersaturated brine is agitated and any crystals that fall out are tossed since they are almost pure NaCl. The brine is allowed to evaporate until the “salt” is completely dried. The “salt” is then washed with methanol since LiCl is almost 3000% more soluble in methanol the NaCl or KCl. Normally this process wouldn’t be all that profitable since recovering the methanol requires a lot of energy, but in this case the recovery is nearly free. Why? Because the brine comes out of the ground at >160F and therefore most be cooled before it goes through the RO unit, conveniently this is almost the same temperature that methanol boils. With countercurrent cooling, and a flash evaporator the methanol is recovered, the LiCl (now about 95% pure) is dried, and brine cooled all basically with no additional input of energy other then what was used to pressurize the well, which can be done for a very low cost everytime the wind blows. Even better at least in Texas the places where the wind blows alot, also have lots of nonproducing wells. So you save a couple million dollars right from the get go since you can buy someone else's very expensive but otherwise worthless hole in the ground.
The only question is can it be done for about $50 a pound?

To all my faithful reader

Well I have a job, as in a real job that pays me and everything. This also means I will need to talk to my new boss as to whether or not I can continue to write weird and cool stuff here. Stay tuned!

Increasing the fuel efficiency of hybrids

While most engineers are struggling to increase the fuel efficiency of cars by fractions of a percent, there is an obvious place where big gains can be made while improving handing: turning. Turning wastes about 6% of total energy used by a car, since two of the wheels have to slow down, while two speed up. (The wheels on the outside have to travel further (that is spin faster) then the wheels on the inside.) Now then some hybrids have independent drive motors for each wheel or at least the back two, if you use the regenerative braking to slow the wheels that have to go slower, you recapture some of the lost energy and the car turns better (it won’t turn like a tank (tanks can turn inside there own radius) but it should be noticeable better.) You can’t get all the wasted energy back but it should be enough to make it worth implementing (the steering improvements alone should justify the implementation.)

SBIR solutions

Army A06-008 Advanced Inlet Protection System in Severe Sand Environments

This SBIR wants a solution for how to filter small sand and dust particles out of the air that is ingested by gas turbines.

There are a number of options but the simplest in my mind is to use the centrifugal force generated in the compressor stage to remove the fine particulates. This would entail designing the first fan to separate the fines (angular momentum of even fine particles is significantly greater then air), throw them against the housing of the turbine into a bypass. This air and the captured fines is vented into the exhaust gases after they are past all the moving parts (this cools the exhaust gases and reduces unburned material). In order to achieve this, the first fan and the bypass channel would have to be hardened since the wear caused by abrasion would be significant, but since the bypass isn’t that hot it can be lined with Silicon Carbide instead of zirconium. If properly executed the first stage filter would function like a turbofan which would increase fuel efficiency and reduce engine noise. In icing environments the bypass would be warmed by the compressed air, so it would not freeze closed, and it would reduce the amount of water and ice that is ingested into the actual compressor stage. While this engine would be limited to subsonic use the SBIR specifics the application to helicopters, sea/land-based gas turbine drive equipment.

DARPA SB062-003 High Temperature Corrosion Resistant Nanocomposite Materials for Turbine Engine Applications

This SBIR wants a way to increase the life of the thermal barrier coating (TBC) in the hot stages of the turbine engines.

This solution to this problem was inspired by the problem in the other challenge. Fine sand particles ingested by the engine melt and coat the hottest parts. Here is the key to the solution the exhaust gasses can actually be hotter then the melting point of the zirconia-based TBC, but since zirconia is such a poor conductor of heat, and the surface area so small it doesn’t melt. However, if a TBC material was extremely finely divided then ingested into the engine it would melt, and coat (or in this case recoat) the parts of the engine where particulate matter would cause the greatest wear. The nano-TBC would only be liquid till it hit a surface then would instantly freeze, and because the surface area is greatly reduced it would not remelt. While it is in theory possible to recoat the entire hot stage of the engine by controlling the amount of bypassed air to keep the nano-TBC particles liquid longer, and monitoring the deposition of new material as a function of shaft power, it is not practical. The best use of the method is to apply the thinnest possible coat of new material (just enough to fill micropits and other small defects in the TBC) since this increases the life of the plasma deposited coating with minimal risk of damage.
Even if in line recoating of the TBC proves impossible it is still possible to clean the engine at a molecular level using ingested compounds. This is of significant benefit since the failure of the TBC is most often caused by mixing of the TBC and the underlying metal caused by migration, or permeation of sulfur or other contaminates. Anti-migration agents or antioxidant coatings could be applied to reduce the corrosion processes and increase the life of hot stage.

Yoga: the religion of physiology, and psychology

Yesterday I had my first actual yoga lesson. While I will say that my instructor was very good, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, how the lesson went is not the point of this post. The point of this post is this: yoga seems to be a system of faith built around observations of human physiology and psychology, made before those fields existed. In my opinion the scientific basis of the practice is sound.
The lesson started with chatting, (seriously don’t laugh it's important). Chatting or singing (like in church) can induce mild hypoxia, which places the brain in a state where visions or other religious type experiences are possible. Yes it seems silly to starve your brain of oxygen in order to find spiritual peace, but since the chatting was responsive there was time to breath so it was mild hypoxia.
Most of the exercises are isometric stretching, designed to increase flexibility and decrease the likelihood of injury. In order to do them properly you have to be symmetric in your movement which for most people (including me) is difficult so you work the weaker muscles harder, which improves posture and better posture is associated with reduced back, joint and muscle pain.
Some of the exercises were designed to “massage the organs”, which given most of the organs are surrounded by the ribs is difficult, but they do serve a purpose. Besides the main vascular system (which carries the blood) there is second vascular system is called the lymphatic system which drains the fluids that leak into the tissue. However the lymphatic system does not have a heart to power the movement of the fluids, so it is powered exclusively the movement of the muscles. This means fluid can kind of move sluggishly in certain areas since certain muscle groups are rarely used. These organ massaging exercises use these muscle groups, which can increase the flow of the lymph. (A point of note, when you hear people talking about flushing toxins, etc, it all sounds like new age babble, it kind of isn’t since lymph is not the cleanest fluid in your body and it is the hangout of a good part of your immune system. (For the same reason the EPA likes to monitor waste water.) So, if you have cancer or are at risk for cancer, you might want to think twice about purging your lymphatic system because cancer cells often metastasize to distant sites using the lymphatic system, and a purge might help them on their journey.) So, while you can’t massage the organs you can move them, which also speeds along their lymph plus feels neat since how often are you conscious of your internal organs?
The breathing exercises are designed induce hyperventilation, which causes a state of light headedness and euphoria, and a little euphoria never hurt a religious experience. However, the breathing exercises also help you fully inflate your lungs, since most people really don’t and that can cause what seems like diminished lung capacity since with out a high flow of air in and out the lungs have a hard time cleaning themselves.
There are exercises to select the nostril, and control the breathing, or force the breathing with muscles not normally used that way for breathing. There is a focus in Yoga on controlling muscles not normally consciously controlled. The eye movement exercises are a prime example of controling muscles that are not normally consciously controlled. By forcing the person to take over and control autonomic functions the conscious mind is made more aware of them can better control them. In addition the conscious mind is only capable of doing so much per unit time so if it is having control the breathing (or whatever) then it is harder to think about other things, and thus the mind is cleared of extraneous thoughts. (Plus the state of euphoria can really diminish mental capacity so it is easy to clear your mind if you can’t focus on anything anyway.) Therefore, while you meditate, if your breathing stops or changes that should be a “tell” that a thought has entered your mind, so an observer can instruct you to “focus on your breathing” in order to clear your mind. Perhaps knowing my own “tell” will help me clear my mind, since when I stop thinking about breathing is when a thought can enter my mind, so I can be proactive.
Speaking of clearing your head, you know those freaky psychedelic mediation pictures? Well once your head is clear and your eyes are closed, they look remarkable like the low light resting state activation of the optic nerve. As long as you are awake your mind continues to process signals from the optic nerve, so the light that gets through your eye lids simulated the night vision which gives what you see a bright background, but the color receptors fire less coherently which creates patterns of color. (I wonder if women see more color in what they see? (In general women have better color vision in low light.) But more interestingly is the reason that pictures that are psychedelic or whatever are that way is because the brain perceives them the same way it perceives the low light resting state activation of the optic nerve, and then can’t reconcile that with the other information it is receiving?)
Finally I’ll briefly cover the physiological aspects of the experience. The most powerful psychological point is that Yoga removes anxiety and induces peace. This not only calms the mind but can relax the muscles thereby easing pain caused by muscle spasms or pinched nerves. However, in a time before Prozac and Xanax reducing anxiety was the most effective cure for depression and anxiety, since people’s problems were gone after the session, the effect is similar to short acting drugs. Yoga also teaches people to let go and not stress over events in their life that are out of their control and lets face it if people could as the Yogis say “Do your best and then move on” we would be much happier as a society. Since that isn’t going to happen Yoga offers a means to calm one’s self, quickly and efficiently when stress arises. It also helps people conquer their fear of death, which is a big fear to most people. There are deeper psychological aspects that while they have funny names in Yoga are covered extensively in Western psychology but I think I have rambled on long enough for now. But I caution people, that Yoga will not cure the underlying psychological issues, only help you suppress them better. Someday you will have to deal with those issues.
To close I find Yoga to be a very well crafted expression of science as a belief system. If done carefully Yoga can help you achieve much of what it promises, (unlike, other science-based faiths). But keep your expectations to increased flexibility and inner peace, it can not cure cancer or diabetes (now the lifestyle associated with those who practice Yoga is associated with reduced risk of environmental diseases, but years of working in a plant that washed asbestos with benzene will not be erased by exercise and light vegetarian diet.) Yoga is not a panacea, it cannot fix you, it can show you the path but you must take the path. On your journey watch out for the snake oil vendors and con men, since they will tell you that the foundations of Yoga, which are solidly rooted in physiology and psychology can be extended to include to the seemingly unobtainable (promises similar to those made by other “science-based” faith systems.)
I will close with a question “Why India is a nuclear nation? ;)

I like to be right: energy prices on the rise

I like to be right: energy prices on the rise

The other day OPEC blamed the current oil prices not on the supply of crude oil but on the lack of refining capacity. Back in September I said the same thing. I am not all the way right though since right now gas in Dallas is almost $3 a gallon not because there is no oil to refine but because they can’t refine it fast enough and even if they could the ethanol that they blend to make the summer mix gasoline is in very short supply (the ethanol in the gas reduces the formation of ozone since it is partly self oxidizing during combustion.) Ethanol is in short supply because it has to be shipped from the Midwest where the corn is grown to the Gulf Coast where the oil is refined. When I say shipped, what I mean is driven, there are no ethanol pipelines, it all comes in tanks on trucks or trains. The summer mix gas in Dallas is 10% ethanol, so for every gallon of gas almost 13 oz is Ethanol, and with 360 million gallons of gas consumed in the US every day, that is a lot of ethanol, that has to be shipped in ~33,000 gallon tanker cars on trains (if you’re curious it would take ~1,100 tanker cars to move just the ethanol to blend the fuel for one day’s use.)
So if you want to place blame for the high prices at the pump, blame the EPA, since they are the ones who mandate the blend and don’t allow the refineries to mix the winter and summer blends. This too increases gas prices since the refineries have to completely sell all the previous seasons blend then clean the storage tanks, before they can start making the new blend. This reduction in inventory causes shortages and sudden price surges.
I offer this bit of proof for my theory, look at diesel oil prices, they are rising but not as fast as gasoline prices, this is because diesel oil doesn’t isn’t blended the same as gasoline, so it is not in as short of supply. When gasoline price rise because of a shortage of oil, diesel oil prices rise faster, because heavy hydrocarbons that make up diesel can be cracked into gasoline if the refineries want to, so diesel oil will be turned into more profitable products. But right now because they can’t make gas as fast as they want anyways, diesel oil isn’t diverted so the inventory is high and the price remains lower.

United Flight 93 the movie

I have now had to ignore several trailers for the United Flight 93 movie. I find the fact that they had turned a tragedy into a movie repugnant and almost beyond reproach. I am sure the people who made the movie say it is tribute to heroes, but I disagree. The people on that flight are heroes, that is not the part I disagree with, it is the “tribute” part that I take issue with. It is not a tribute it is a travesty spawned by greed and a society that thrives vicariously on the suffering of others (yes it is society’s fault too, but that is a chicken and egg issue.) It hasn’t even been a decade, the people who lost friends and family on that tragic day are still healing. Now thanks to the magic of Hollywood, they can not only be reminded of their pain, but actually watch their friends and family die on a 40 foot screen with THX sound. I freely admit I won’t watch the trailers so I don’t know, but I’d bet based on what I’ve heard about the story of that flight they will have the World Trade Center falling down in there somewhere. That way they can reopen the wounds of a whole nation, just to make a buck.

I am not even sure this movie will be good propaganda to rally support for the war on terrorism. There is too much risk of backlash for this to be a propaganda movie anyways. The propaganda movies that should work best now are:
For men: movies that put the military and service in a positive light and vilify the enemy by showing that they will wage war at any cost and cannot be negotiated with.
For women: movies that are Lifetime and Oxygen type movies, showing the human elements of war, preferably either WWII or a fake war that is against a dehumanized enemy. It also probably won’t hurt to point out to the average American woman that being a feminist in the Middle East means you don’t think a woman should be stoned to death because a man on the street saw here ankles.

The propaganda show is the Unit, since it appeals to both sexes. Actually propaganda isn’t really the order of the day since today’s media really isn’t going to help spread it. The order of the day is distraction, which is why reality or reality like TV is so popular. If people can’t be made to feel good, then at least they have something to prevent them from noticing so much.

Blue Cheese and the immune system

Yes, that is a weird title, but it is catchy! Ok seriously blue cheese does effect the immune system and it is positive effect too. Actually eating pretty much any fungus (possibly even those little mushrooms at the salad bar) has an effect. The effect is caused by glycoproteins the fungus produce. When foreign proteins (antigens) enter the blood stream through the intestines, the presentation to the immune system generally has an immunosupressive effect (unless the reaction causes anaphylactic shock). This is why raw honey harvested in the area you live helps with pollen allergies. However, the glycoproteins from the fungus (blue cheese is blue because there is mold growing in it, yes that is on purpose!) are presented to the immunosystem differently. Remember fungus is very sneaky, and hard to get rid of (think about how long you have to use the cream to get rid of athlete’s foot or nail fungus) so seeing proteins produced by fungus in the blood (yes your immune system can tell) is very alarming to the immune system. Even though the fungus that produced the glycoproteins is harmless and dead, the glycoproteins it made put the immune system on alert, especially the cells that are in charge of surveillance. These cells begin to actively hunt (and hunt is the right word) for anything out of the ordinary (as I said fungus infects are sneaky since they are generally only in outer most layers of cells (skin, nail bed) or actually external (trush and yeast infections). (A brief tangent: women shouldn’t laugh cause they get athlete’s foot too, and men shouldn’t laugh cause uncircumcised men can get yeast infections too.)
Now then while the immune system is hunting for a phantom infection, it might find a tumor or viral infection, that under normal circumstances it had missed. This is source of most medicinal mushrooms anticancer properties, the mushrooms produce proteins that really irk the immune system but since there is no infection the tumor becomes the whipping boy. So, eat your blue cheese, perhaps you’ll live longer. (Please note if the cheese turns blue or any other color on its own, don’t eat it! And you can’t just cut the fuzzy part off and eat the rest. Many molds produce toxins and secrete them into the food; these toxins can make you sick or dead!!!)

Clinton Family Values

If anyone can remember that far back, remember the big scandal about how a company based in Dubai was going to buy some port facilities here in the US? Well Senator Hillary Clinton was out raged that America would allow foreign and possibly hostile powers to control such a vital interest. So, in true grandstanding fashion she sponsored legislation to block the sale of ports and other things that are vital to national security. Now this isn’t a bad idea, since it is always a bad idea to sell stuff you need to people who might use it against you.
(Now alas up to 40% of the more than $8 trillion US national debt is in foreign hands, which means if one or more of the major debt holders which include China and OPEC tried to sell or call in the debt a big chunk of debt, they could devalue the dollar and bring the US economy to its knees. Well why haven’t they done it? I mean it is clear that China wants to be the new superpower. Because destroying the US economy would bring most of the world’s economies to their knees as well. So until China can support the rest of the world’s economies and prevent the war that would result from such a move, it is a foolish move to make. In the meantime it is a much smarter move for our trading partners to keep buying our debt since we use the money they give us to buy stuff from them. This weakens us as it strengths them, plus keeping America a super power for as long as possible benefits China immensely cause they can sell us lots of stuff and they don’t have to send their armies all over the world to keep the peace.)

Ok enough of that tangent.
The reason this is called Clinton Family Values is because guess who was working for the people in Dubai, to ensure that the deal went through, and received a $300,000 check for his efforts? You guessed it, the former president, husband of the honorable Hillary Clinton, William Clinton. Unless they don’t talk at home, assuming they even live together anymore, don’t you think Hillary might have known in advance about this deal? The better question is why, now that it is out that Bill was playing for the other team aren’t the Clintons being smeared all over the news for playing both sides? Interesting the way DC works, isn’t it?

A review: Coca Cola Blak, and abit about caffeine

Yesterday I was at Target when I saw an interesting looking new Coke product call Blak (there is an accent mark over the a that looks like the Coke wave symbol). Thinking it was $1.99 a picked up a 4 pack, since the only product description is “Carbonated Fusion Beverage” and I was curious. Only after paying and looking at my receipt, did I realize it was $4.99 for a 4 pack of 8 oz bottles, but I was still curious. Tonight I tried it, and for anyone who doesn’t already know, Blak is a mix (fusion) of coffee and diet Coke. Here is the weird part I am torn as to what I think about it. On one hand the first sip is disgusting, but then it changes and it has a taste similar to the bottled Starbucks Frappacinos (which I am ashamed to say I have tried) with an odd but not totally unpleasant diet Coke finish. Strangely the taste improved as it got warmer which is true for Diet Coke in general. Being a true experimentalist I poured some out into a clear glass so I could see what the fancy but totally opaque packing hid. There is a reason it is bottled the way it is (small bottle means you can drink it in one sitting but has a screw top so you can carry it with you and you don’t need to transfer it into another container), they don’t want you to pour it in a glass or to even see what you’re drinking. The contents of the bottle are a sickly/milky, translucent, brown liquid, which is wholly unappealing. Now here is why I think I have grown fond of Blak. Most people soda based caffeine doesn’t give them a buzz, cause the caffeine is an additive and so it isn’t taken up well. In coffee, tea and other “naturally caffeinated” beverages there are compounds loosely called polyphenols, which make the caffeine more bio-available. This means the caffeine really can get into your system and do its thing, so even a soda junky like me can get a nice buzz off coffee or Blak since it contains “coffee extract”. The extract also gives Blak chocolate and fruit notes.

Actually I salute Coca Cola, for figuring out (or remembering) that by putting polyphenols into an artificially caffeinated beverage, they could create a much more potent (and addictive) beverage since the extract can be used to “deliver” way more caffeine then the same amount of coffee could contain. (This is similar logic to some of the tobacco companies adding additional nicotine to the cigarettes in order to ensure that smokers would find other brands “weak and unsatisfying”.) This was actually Coca Colas original product model, since as everyone already knows the Coca in Coca Cola is actually Coca leaf from which the stimulant cocaine is isolated. With small amounts of cocaine plus the caffeine and the coca leaf extract (polyphenols) as the vehicle for all the wonderful alkaloids, the “original” Coke beverage produced an eye opening jolt, and so Coke was a medicine. The medicinal proprieties were lost when the teetotalers, made cocaine illegal. Now the buzz is back and Coke knows they can charge a premium since it is an energy drink.

This buzz is actually making me consider drinking Blak again, and since I have 3 more left I will. After that for my caffeine buzz I will go back to coffee since for the same money as Blak, I can buy the ultra smooth Kona coffee, but maybe I’ll drink it with a Diet coke chaser. ;)

As seen on TV: RainX

Ok most products that are “As seen on TV” are great ideas, they’re just executed poorly. (You can’t cook pasta in a teaspoon of hot water and have it be edible, no matter what the lady says, and a sewing machine that you can hold in your hand shouldn’t be used to sew denim, or Kevlar, again no matter what the lady says!) But RainX isn’t one of the good idea, but bad products; it is as good as advertised if not better. The stuff can be a pain to apply, but it makes turning on your windshield wipers for anything but a heavy rain unnecessary. Plus, bird dropping and bug guts don’t stick (or if it is hot fuse) to the window. So if you’re driving long distance, the bug guts will just wipe off with the gas station squeegee and a little water. Here are a few tips:
RainX has to be applied to very clean windows so clean your windows twice, once to get the heavy crud off, then again to get them spotless. After you apply it says to buff off with a paper towel, well that takes forever, so pour cool clean water on the window and wipe off most of the haze then use a second paper towel to buff it out. The first time you apply it do it twice like it says, but after that once is enough if you keep up with it.

Here are a few words of warning: First don’t freak the first time it rains after you apply the RainX, it is suppose to do that (You’ll understand when you see it). Second, DON’T get RainX on the paint or your wiperblades or anything not made of glass! Third, if you have a crack or a chip in the window that you plan to have repaired or you need any glass work done on your car don’t use RainX, till after the repairs are done or bad things will happen! It doesn’t say that on the bottle but trust me on this one.

Please note: I am not getting any money from the RainX people, and I actually use RainX. However, if the RainX people want to send me money or even a T-shirt I wouldn’t say no. ;)

Hot ashes: On becoming a doctor

A while ago when people asked I compared getting a Ph.D. to being a Phoenix. The legend of the Phoenix sounds so cool. Briefly when the bird gets old it builds a nest which bursts into flames, then once the fires dies a new Phoenix is born from the ashes. That all sounds great until you think about that the Phoenix was burned alive (on the list of best ways to die, being burned alive is not at the top). Getting a Ph.D. at least in the biological sciences is very similar since you are consumed by the effort (however there is no actual fire unless things go very badly), then after your defense you arise from the ashes a doctor of philosophy.

(I had hoped it would be more like becoming a Sith Lord from the last Star Wars. Plus let’s face which sounds better Dr. Ryan or Lord Ryan?)

Well I have been consumed, and all that is left is hot ash and a few embers. Once those go out and the ash cools, we’ll see if I arise better for the experience, or if I was just burned at the stake as a warlock (Men are warlocks, women are witches.)

Why do you care? Well for the few readers of my little site, once I arise from the ashes I will start posting again. I have several half written posts but I am still finding hard to focus after my little ordeal, plus there are some other distractions in my life that are taking up a lot of time (but it is time well spent.) But rest assured my faithful reader I will return, and here’s what to expect in the next few months:

Invisible Solar Hot Water Heaters
Hypothesis or hypocrisy? A crisis for the biological sciences
Rehab for the our oil addiction, the third of 12 steps (Coal)
Rehab for the our oil addiction, the fourth of 12 steps (Methane Hydrate)

A bit of late night wisdom

You cannot and should not judge your own worth. For if you do, you can be assured that you will substantially over or under estimate your own worth. If you feel the need to be judged you must let others do it, but you must not let the opinions of others get you down. Why not? You asked them to judge you???… As I said they are giving you an opinion, and opinions are just that, they are not facts. (Plus a lot of the people out there are morons. ;) Most of the time when you are judged, it is unsolicited and as with comment cards at restaurants most people will only speak up when they have something negative to say.

I'm a doctor!!!

Well actually I'll be a doctor in a few weeks when all the paper work is done.

Why Brokeback lost

I have hoped to avoid covering this topic, but with all the hype in the press, I figure why not. It is even richer because I have never seen the movie, but I have theory anyways Brokeback Mountain didn’t sweep the Oscars, but it didn’t deserve too, not because it was a movie about gay cowboys. It won three awards in recognition for the directing, score, etc, because it was an exceptional movie in those areas. Why didn’t the actors win anything? Because they didn’t deserve to! The role of having to pretend you are something you’re not isn’t a particularly challenging role for an actor to play, and pretending to love someone, since a challenge either… That is way the actors got nothing because they didn’t push the boundaries of their field. You win awards for acting because you pushed the boundaries, not cause did your job even if you did it well. Oh and there are serious politics, but I am sure that had nothing to do with it.

What happened to the advice? Or “How to meet your perfect mate”

This blog is entitled Freeguidance, so the few that read this might be wondering where’s the guidance?? Well, I do occasionally post advice, like the Netflix hacks, or how to interrogate the prisoners at Camp X-Ray, but recently I haven’t posted anything like “How to meet your perfect mate”.
So just real quick I’ll go into that. Just like real estate it’s location, location, location. If you have high standards, but only go to dive bars, you should not be surprised that you can’t find that special something. If you want to meet the right person look for them at a place you’d go to together. Example if you are looking to meet a smart, slightly reserved girl, the hot new club might not be the right place, since if she is there she will be there with friends who made her go out and so she’ll feel out of her element and your advances will make her uncomfortable. Even the coffee house of your local bookstore might not be the right place. Where then would you meet such a girl? In the stacks at your local B&N, or reading in chairs that aren’t in the café. There she will be in her element, and more likely to be comfortable and friendly and engage in idle chat with a strange man who asks about a book she’s reading. The location rule is true for girls too; you are likely to meet the right guy in a place where you would want to go with him. Like minds and all.

Advice for you girls:
Many guys now days who aren’t total players are gun shy about first contact. (Remember girls, that total and smooth self confidence is often the sign of a player. (Here’s a hint: if he’s 25+, single and “smooth” then at best he has baggage, at worst he is a predator.)) What’s this means for you girls? You can’t be shy! Even if you aren’t comfortable asking a guy out, you shouldn’t be too shy to make the first move.
If you ask him a question (about anything you want, but don’t be obvious) that makes you approachable, this give him the confidence to keep the conversation going, possibly to the point where a number will be asked for…

Rehab for the our oil addiction, the second of 12 steps (Oil shale)

I would like to open by saying that this is a follow up to a previous post strangely enough entitled “Rehab for the our oil addiction, the first of 12 steps” (the first step was methanol). To be honest I have no idea how many steps there will actually be, I just liked the old title and it is a good idea to serialize articles.
So here we go again!
As that I am a fan of delivering bad news bluntly, they is no way to cut 75% of our Middle East oil imports, by 2025, unless… well hmm… unless we start producing enough oil on our own. Here is the problem with that, even if we made the entire state of Alaska into one giant pump jack and juiced all the seals and caribou for oil we still couldn’t met our energy needs. There is one way that we could get enough oil, well it’s not technically oil it is oil shale. You can think of oil shale is kind of halfway between oil, coal, and a rock. What it is, is less important then the fact that between the US and Canada there is enough of it to feed our energy needs for a couple hundred years 1.2 trillion barrels worth. (Coal, which will be step three of 12 (if I have the time and interest), is also a resource that we have enough of to last hundreds of years.)
The problem with oil shale is how to separate the useful part (kerogen) from the part that is worthless rock and do it cheaply and cleanly. Right now they cook the rocks and that makes most of semi-liquid hydrocarbons flow out, but that is costly and a lot of good carbon is lost or left unextracted. Plus, as I said the stuff is semi-liquid so it clogs everything up. However, for most things that are mined (oil shale is mined) the mineral is extracted from the ore, using a solvent (hard to believe but cyanide is a solvent). So it would be nice if there was a solvent that could extract the hydrocarbons from oil shale. Well there are lots of organic solvents will do it, but organic solvents are bad because most of them are made from oil and would be lost during the extraction, so the solvent costs would make extraction to costly to be practical. (Plus the ultimate goal would be in situ solvent extraction of the hydrocarbons, and could imagine what the EPA would say when asked if it was ok to pump massive amounts of say carbon tetrachloride in the deposit?) There is one carbon-based molecule that isn’t considered organic, yep you guessed it (or not) carbon dioxide (CO2). Mostly people only know of CO2 the gas and CO2 the solid (dry ice), but under pressure when cooled CO2 can turn into a liquid and if kept under pressure it remains liquid at high temperatures (>93 C). (You’ve seen liquid CO2 trucks on the road it’s called NuCO2, you can find the fill port on your local fast food restaurant just look for a 6x6” stainless steel box at about eye level, but I digress.) Liquid CO2 is one of the finest solvents of hydrocarbons there is, and even better to get the stuff dissolved in it back out all you do is release the pressure at the CO2 turns back into a gas.
My idea is that the oil shale material be ground fine and the hydrocarbons extracted using liquid CO2. The extracted material can then be pumped to the hydrogenator or cracker or column still, still dissolved in the CO2 (thus reducing the clogging problems.) The CO2 is then recovered, scrubbed (since it will contain a small amount of gaseous hydrocarbons (CH4) and lots of sulfur compounds (which means the extracted hydrocarbons are less sour and therefore will burn cleaner)), liquefied, and reused. The remaining material which is greater reduced in volume can then be retorted if sufficient carbon remains to be worthwhile, but if (probably) not then it can be burned in a rotary furnace (similar to the kilns used to make Portland Cement) to provide energy for the plant, and clinker that comes out the end can be ground to produce a commercial abrasive, left whole and used as filler for concrete, or if we get hard enough up, would be a medium grade aluminum ore.

In the news: Trees increase global warming

I just read an article that says “Tree increase global warming” if this is true then we are really really screwed. Why? Because deforestation is “cause” of global warming, so if replanting the trees also makes global warming worse, then global temperature should start rising exponentially any minute now. I can already cook eggs on the sidewalk in the summer, so in a few years I should be able to bake bread on the sidewalk too. Or perhaps scientists need to realize that modeling the global climate with the information and resources we have available is futile. When they can predict Tuesday’s weather accurately on Sunday, perhaps I will believe they have a handle on climatological modeling.

Camp X-Ray telling the difference between truth and lies

With the release of the names of the prisoners at Camp X-Ray, the pressure to close that camp is sure to go up. Mark my words, in the next couple days; we will start seeing biographical clips of many of the prisoners. These clips will make the men look like everyday people, who were rounded up by a corrupt and paranoid country. Why? Because if it was clear that most of these men were terrorists, they won’t be being held there, they’d have been tried and sent to real prison. Most of the men there are not there because they are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of being a terrorist (however based on what I’ve read they have committed some crime, which in America would get you incarcerated.) Is being a terrorist a crime, even if they haven’t done anything yet? Think of it this way: Is serving as a member of terrorist group, which seeks to undermine the legitimately elected government of a nation, treason? Well, that kind of sounds like the definition of treason... (Conspiracy to commit treason is also a crime, as is espionage.) Now then I have also checked and the punishment for treason in the US and the countries these men were captured in is still death. (In theory anyone who swore allegiance to the Taliban, was committing treason against the elected government of Afghanistan, which was over thrown illegally in 1996.)

Is everyone in Camp X-Ray an enemy combatant? No, probably not, the problem is how to tell who is and who isn’t. Anyone who figures out how to solve that little problem deserves a Nobel Peace Prize (but is more like to get it for Medicine or Chemistry). Actually, the simple solution is PET scans (no Nobel is necessary, it is my honor to serve). But since these men have been questioned for so long I doubt that even PET can determine if they are lying. If you want to use PET you need to do it early in the interrogation process, because if they are use to repeating the same thing over and over it is more difficult to detect, then if they’re having to come up fresh answers (lies). However, you could use the PET scan as propaganda tool. First convince the prisoners, it is infallible, and unlike a lie detector test can’t be fooled. Take a couple of the obviously guilty and probably innocent into be tested, the guilty are immediately transferred to new prisons, and innocent are immediately let go. It is human nature that the innocent will see it as a way to prove their innocence and be more receptive to testing while the guilty will see it as bad thing and resist even passively. Ok the guilty are smart and realize this and not believing PET to be infallible (most will have received training on how to beat lie detector tests) will also want the opportunity to prove their innocence. PET can then be used to pick up on the mental discipline, yes this isn’t a sure sign of guilt, but it is sign that innocence is less likely.

The real problem is what to do with all the people who are innocent. If they weren’t terrorists before, well chances are that four years of false imprisonment with men who are terrorists, might have changed that. That problem not even I have an idea on how to solve.

Lead paint and torte reform

So, the paint makers won a big time victory today. Yes they lost the suit since they were found liable for the lead contamination, but the judgment did not include putative damages. (This is a victory, trust me!)
I have read books written in late 50’s, about home construction, and let me tell you they have sections on the wonders of lead paint, and cement board with reinforced with asbestos. Why, because at the time they were miracle building materials (I’ll skip asbestos board for now, since that is tangential.) Lead paint prevents wood from rotting, and given how old some of those houses are is a testament to how well it works. They have known lead (Pb) is poisonous since Roman times, but they didn’t ban lead paint till the 70’s. This is about the same time when they found a way to (pressure) treat wood with preservative that wasn’t creosote or lead. This is not an accident; they couldn’t ban lead paint till they replaced it. The paint companies sold a product that any rational person would know wasn’t all that safe. More over they didn’t try and hide what it was by calling it “Wonder Paint” or something fluffy, they called it “White Lead Paint”. But lead paint served a purpose, so people bought it and painted surfaces that were subject to rotting with it (base boards, window sills, clapboards, and in well built home the bottom of the studs and the sill plate). This is the problem, since these areas are where kids can get, and because these areas get wet they are also prone to pealing, if lead paint was a great ceiling paint, there wouldn’t be problem. Should the paint companies be made to pay for the contamination? Probably, after all they knowing made a product that was toxic. But the reason it sold so well was because it was toxic, and that is why I don’t think punitive damages were order. Punitive damages are to punish the defendant for their wrong doing, but the paint companies didn’t act in bad faith or try and deceive people with tricky labels. The paint companies sold what the market demanded, and if people didn’t want lead paint there were several other types of paint available, so the consumer’s choice to use lead paint was a conscious one.

Now what does this have to do with torte reform? Everything! The reason we need torte reform is we have become class action happy. However, torte reform would limit the options of people who have been legitimately wronged. The lead paint case and some of the Vioxx cases are the best torte reform we could hope for, because there was no profit in the winning. The lawyers that do this kind of work do it for a cut of the settlement, and they see dollar signs from billion dollar settlements resulting not from actual damages, but punitive damages. If judges and juries stop handing out huge (punishing) damages, then the profit dries up and lawyers lose interest and the system reforms itself. This means fewer suits that are based on the size of warning label on the box rat poison, since too small a label might not make it clear that the contents are not to be used as baby food. But people who’ve legitimately been wronged, (and are likely to elicit big punitive damages) still can sue and win and the evil company can be still be punished with huge damages, so lawyers will still represent them. This is torte reform we can live with.

National tire awareness month! (is good PR)

Everyday I drive home and notice that like half the cars on the road have under inflated tires. This is bad for fuel economy and the tires. So, I was thinking about how to get people to put air in their tires. It’s not like the cops can pull you over and tell you to put air in your tires. But then I realized that is gas stations where most people put air in their tires, and more gas stations are connected to big oil, and that gave me an idea. Most gas stations charge for air sometimes as much as 50 cents, if they have air at all. So here is my idea, ExxonMobil or Shell or who ever sponsors an “air up to save” campaign, complete with ads. This shows they care about people. They send people out into the community (grocery store parking lots, malls, etc) with little printer machines that can print out the proper inflation pressure for various makes and models, (they don’t actually check the pressure other than visually notice it is low and they collect no information.) Then they leave a little slip of paper that says “Your can has not been touched, but we noticed you tires seem low. Under inflation can reduce tire life and reduce fuel economy 10%. The recommended inflation pressure for a model X car made in Y, is Z. Please stop in at any Big Oil Company filling station for free air, because at BOC we care!” Yes there will be a couple of law suits, but over all the PR is positive. Plus from a marketing stand point when are people most likely going to stop in for air? When they need gas too, so you give them free air and they buy not free gas from you. Sounds pretty win win.

The tire companies could get in on it too, and get a little tent area in mall parking lots, since they could actually inflate the tires to the proper pressure right there, so people didn’t have to go somewhere to get their tires inflated or even touch their tires. Why would the NTB and the others want to do this? Because they would also be helpful, and “inspect” the tires before they did anything. This would mean they could tell people that they need new tires or an alignment or their wheels balanced, or brake work, or an oil change. Then to be extra helpful, they would tell the people that if they bring the slip of paper they got into any NTB or whatever location that they would get a 5% discount or something on services. The PR and marketing opportunity would be huge, since if the marketing was kept on the down low, the media could be used to make it seem like the company was being good a Samaritan, by helping reduce this country’s dependence on foreign oil and reducing pollution. (By media I mean have a radio or TV station send a crew to do a live broad cast, hand out t-shirts, and bottled water maybe even give out concert tickets and prizes. This will give the “event” a festive air to put people in a good mood, and plus a little hype never hurts!)

More about Lance

I am sure that even people who live under rocks in the Sahara, have heard the Lance Armstrong and Sheryl Crowe have split up. Then 3 weeks later she has surgery for breast cancer? Hmmm, quite the coincidence. Whether or not he loves her, from a purely PR stand point his butt better be there for her during her recovery and the Live Strong Foundation needs to move aggressively to show it cares. I would even suggest they find a way to intermix pink and yellow in those wrist bands. Why should he do this? Cause right now it looks like she found a lump and he dumped her. How does it look if America’s most famous cancer survivor abandons a woman just diagnosed with cancer? Heartless…

Netflix hacks

With all the hype about Netflix throttling the mailings of high volume members I thought I would publish a couple of Netflix hacks, cause throttling isn’t the only way to slow you down.

First, you can avoid throttling simply by keeping one movie longer and/or sending it out of phase with the rest of your returns. If you keep one movie for a week or longer you can dramatically increase the average return time, without a substantial reduction in your rental rate. Netflix expects a surge of movies to be mailed Monday, and checked in by Wednesday, if you’re constantly returning movies in the middle of the week (esp the same day you get them) then that is a nice big red flag.

You can hack the system by returning the movies out of phase or out of order. If you normally return all three or five same day, return one or two a day and don’t return them in the order you got them. Most people don’t watch movies in order you get them, some movies you’ve got to “feel” before you watch. So if you check out Caddy Shack, Police Academy and foreign film with a name you can’t pronounce, then hang on to the foreign film a day longer, before it goes back. All these hacks are designed to simulate the normal patterns of the high volume movie watcher, so you stay high volume but aren't throttled.

Netflix can also slow you down by mailing your movies from further away or having you return the movies to a more distant return center. This is not actually throttling, it is all part of Netflix’s inventory management system, but it can add days to your return times. The first key is if you hear about a cool “cult” movie on the radio or something it your area, add it to your list but not the top, give it a week or two. Here’s why, if a movie that only has a few copies in inventory undergoes an unexpected but localized surge in interest (like a popular DJ recommends it), then the first people who get it will likely not be getting it from their local distribution center, but a more distant center where it has been gathering dust. Netflix will then stage most of the copies to the area of demand, so the next round or two of people will get it and return it to the local center. Once demand dries up or spreads to other areas, Netflix will disperse the copies again and those people will have to return to a more distant center. So, if you stage your rental just right you can be in the middle of the demand and have neither of the longer times en route on you.

Now as for Netflix having you mail a movie to a distant place, you can hack that too. Netflix allows you to return 2 movies in on envelope, so if you don’t use the far away return envelope, you can save time. Now it can sometimes add a day to the check in if you do this, but if mailing it to the end of the earth will add more time then this is still worth it.

The last hack is different kind of hack, it is how to optimize your mailing. When you return your movies, your choice of post office matters a great deal. For me my local post office is the address of the return center, but here are some loose rules. Your mailbox is the worst place, unless your carrier is ultra-reliable and you don't live in a residential area. The big blue mail boxes aren’t bad assuming they feed a good post office. If you live in a big town the best post offices to do your mailing aren’t, the ones where you can stand in line to buy stamps. Those are retail post offices which are set up to deliver mail to residential customers, not process lots of out going mail. In general these post offices will be much slower, adding at least a day to your return times. The best post offices are commercial post offices, and are generally in areas that are not residential. These are recognized by the fact that they don’t have a retail counter, so you’ve probably never been to it, and the trucks parked around them are mostly semi’s not small carrier trucks. These post offices are nodes, all they do is process and route mail. (Retail post offices often send and recieve their mail to/from these locations.) A movie mailed from a commerical post office (if the Netflix center is local) will go straight to the last stop (same or next day), and if the center is not local, then the movie is much closer to leaving town and arriving at the Netflix center.

Hope all this helps!

Solar thermal wind generation, and practical but wild alternative energy ideas

Some of you might have heard that in Australia they are planning to build a solar thermal wind tower which is a greenhouse with a radius of 3.5 kilometers with a stack that is a kilometer high. Why? Because the heat collected under the greenhouse roof will create a draft that goes up the stack, and on the way out turns a turbine to generate couple hundred MW. Here is the problem, besides the construction costs and problems, the thing is a maintenance nightmare, and has to be far way from people.

Biggest problem with this new “clean” energy source is that it will have to run at full output 24/7/365 for ~6,600 years just to make back the energy it took to build it. Concrete requires a massive amount of energy to make! Also, isn’t it a bad idea to pump huge amount of particulate matter high into the atmosphere?

If you took less then half the money, and drilled a couple holes in the ground say 15,000 feet down and pumped water into them you can extract a lot more energy. (The Earth is hot 24/7, but the sun is only up about half the day.) If you go that deep you don’t need a geothermal hotspot and because wells for natural gas routinely go below 15K feet the technology is slightly more practical than chimney a kilometer high (the tallest free standing building is only 553 meters tall). If 15,000 feet deep seems like too much you can drill the wells only a couple of thousand feet and use a closed loop system which boils something other than water and turn a small turbine. Even better do a little horizontal drilling a couple of hundred feet down and you could tap into the fact that close to the surface it is cool and use that to condense the working fluid before you inject it back in to the ground.

If you are dead set on induced draft thermal wind generation then I suggest instead of a giant greenhouse and stack, a smaller stack with a thermal mass underneath it, and a mirror array focusing the light on the mass. Unlike direct solar thermal generation, which melts salt or something to boil water this wouldn’t require that level of precision engineering, so cheaper mirrors can be used and the material wouldn’t be subjected to as intense heat. The greater heat from the focused mirror array hitting a thermal mass would reduce the need for a really tall stack since the temperature differential would be much greater. Plus, the thermal mass would carry production through the evening peak energy demand. The production of energy would also be much more responsive to demand since as solar irradiation increases, load on generators increase (mostly A/C loads), but more irradiation means more heat into the thermal mass so more temperature differential. Also greenhouse with a surface area of nearly 40 square kilometers makes it hard to not lose a lot of heat, so cold but sunny days will see a significant reduction in energy production. A mirror array and a thermal mass would remain efficient during the winter since the heated area is much smaller and cooling the thermal mass is the point. Even better my design allows the heating to occur higher in the stack, so the bottom of the stack can be built stronger and serve as a place to preheat the incoming air, where as in the greenhouse version the bottom of the stack is open since that is where the draft is induced. I still think solar thermal wind thing is a bad idea, but I think my idea better then what they are building in Oz.

Making Detroit profitable again

By Detroit I mean the automakers in Detroit (preferably only GM and maybe Chrysler). My plan is not the obvious make big SUVs but make them hybrid, my plan is to go after the Japanese car market share. Look, they can make land boats all day, but with gas prices this high they will be harder to sell. American luxury cars are either what rappers or grandmas drive. Accords and Camry’s are nice well built cars that sell in price range most people can afford and on their second owner still look good. If you can’t afford midrange then there is a step down with the Civics, etc, which are still nice, well made cars. Some of the luxury is gone but the quality remains. I have seen the Ford Fusion and it is no Accord. Detroit has no car that can compete with those cars, and the brands are all very pigeonholed. If Buick started selling Lexus LS, they would still be thought of as old people cars. It is time for Detroit to break the mold! They can’t just try to make over Cadillac’s imagine, they need new brands!

GM needs to lock the Caddy and the Pontiac people in a room with a couple Japanese car owners (for a reality check) and not let them leave till they have a new brand and a product line that represents practical luxury. Think of it Infiniti and Lexus aren’t that old, but they are leaders. Neither Cadillac’s banal, sofa like luxury nor Pontiac’s angry young man is enough. They need a car with a enough road feel to keep the driver interested, but not so much it hurts, enough power to hold its own but not so much it is hard to drive in traffic or wastes gas. It should be gender neutral to a bit manly, it should be a car a guy’s wife/girlfriend wants to borrow, but might not buy for herself. It should have a real backseat, but look stupid with a baby on board sticker. I think the brand needs to be modeled after Acura (or Honda) and make ~5 models: an economy coupe (rice rocket), a nice sedan, a luxury sedan, a sports car, and an SUV. The sports car and the luxury sedan need to be where new features are demonstrated, with the assumption that next the nice sedan will have it as an option and in two to three years it will be standard in the nice and an option in the economy coupe. There should be nice packages to customize your car. Not like the Scion, more like Acura has the TL but for the sports car people they use to have the TL Type S.

The customer should not have to leave the dealership to look at the company’s entire model line like they do with all the American car companies that make sub-brands that compete with themselves. Japanese car companies build loyalty since your first new car is their econ, then you move up to the sedan, then the SUV, then the sports car, then the luxury and then you die. Detroit doesn’t do that, you can’t really move in brand as well. You can stay with Chrysler, GM and Ford but there is no luxury Taurus.

Here is the big thing. American car companies need to innovate, they can’t wait for the government to make them innovate. If they can build a more fuel efficient engine then they need too, and they need to say we did it because our customers wanted it, not because the EPA said so. Detroit can’t keep building the same cars and have the same mentality. It didn’t work the last time gas prices spiked, they refused to change and so Japanese car makers got a foothold in America. This time they are competing against crappy Datsuns they are going against equals. If they don’t adapt or at least prove flexible then it will soon be GM a division of Honda Motor Company. Actually that would never happen the American car companies have too much debit to be worth buying.

Best and worst Super Bowl commercials

The best commercials were without a doubt the Bud Light commercials, with the notable exception of the last one with the stadium and pouring of the Bud Light. The one with the streaker was hilarious. The MacGyver Mastercard ad was excellent too. Getting to see MacGyver again, priceless. I don’t like Ford but the Kermit the Frog commercial was quite well thought out.

The worst commercials are as follows: the BurgerKing commercial, (however they did admit in the commercial that the “King” is freaky). The Diet Pepsi commercials (but the one Jackie Chan was someone funny.) But as always the worst were the CareerBuilder.com, the one with the “Jackasses” was slightly funny however, was that his girlfriend, why were they talking? It was not well thought out, however spending millions of dollars to advertise with monkeys shows some lack of forethought.

Why didn’t the Armed Services advertise? If it hadn’t have been a dome the Marines should have had a Harrier or the Army had an Apache bring the coin for the coin toss. They could at least have had a heavy lift helicopter bring the nearly 200 balls they used for the game and drop them off outside (preferably in a HUMVEE which could drive on to the field).

Hate crimes, Nazism and blood purges

Now that they had caught/killed the guy who attacked those people in the gay bar in Massachusetts he will most certainly be declared a martyr by many of the hate groups around world. They will say he struck a blow for social purity by trying to kill the undesirables and the policemen who serve the Zionist government or whatever the hell they can think up. However, most of the people that prop up these groups don’t realize that when the revolution or whatever the hell they call it comes they are to be the first to go. Once Hitler achieved power the thugs who helped him gain power the “brown shirts” were rounded up and killed, and replaced with the SS and Gestapo, who routinely slaughtered each other. The “soldiers” that put him in power were uneducated, rabble and prone to violence and of questionable loyalty. So, for Hitler to establish his rule as a legitimate government that the people and the world would listen to, the people who moved him from a beer hall malcontent to Chancellor of Germany and finally Fuhrer had to go. (Every great dictator/madman has used blood purges to assure his power.) So, to all the soldiers of hate groups I offer you this message. Your leaders see you as expendable, it is most likely the most “valuable” thing you will do them will involve fetching containers of liquid for them. If you are called up for a “mission” it is likely you will be cannon fodder, since you are more valuable as a dead martyr than a live soldier, and if your leader gets his wish and rises to power, sleep with one eye open cause you’ve got to go...
My advice to you is don’t blame others cause your life sux, and don’t be so naïve to think that the group you joined can actually do anything about it or even wants to help you. You want you life to sux less? Go get an education, and make something of yourself, then you will have the self respect that you claim the inferior races lack. You might not be rich, or a leader but educated people are generally less expendable. What if you don’t think you have what it takes to do this by yourself? Then there are four branches of the armed services that would be happy to help you be all you can be. And while they will most likely put you in harm’s way, they don’t consider you expendable, and the “revolution” was in 1775 so the likelihood that blood purges are still required to solidify the government’s power is minimal.

Keep your women safe!

While that ferry sinking in the Red Sea is tragic, the bigger tragedy will never be reported. You can read about how the crew took people life jackets away, or insisted on going >100 miles to Egypt instead back 20 miles to Saudi, with a fire burning on the vehicle deck. Here is what you will read very little about. One of the reason there were so few survivors is that most of women (and probably the children too) were locked in their cabins when the ship sank. The crew and men in general locked the women up to prevent them from panicking. Clearly the crew felt if there was panicking to be done; they were the ones to do it, which might explain why they took off in the life boats. I don’t blame them for not wanting to turn back; since the Saudi’s special religious police probably wouldn’t have let the women off the burning boat anyways.
You think I am being funny?
I not and here's an example, a girl’s school in Saudi (I know your thinking why would girls need to be educated, when they can be bare foot and pregnant without one. I assume it was either an ultra left wing school or was some sort of school were the one’s that insisted females have brains too could have that illusion dispelled.) Well anyway, the school caught fire, and the firemen started bringing the girls out without veils. When the special religious police came, they beat (like with sticks) the fireman for shaming the girls by taking them from the vigorously burning building without veils and forced the girls back into the burning building to get their veils. Then when girls couldn’t get their veils and tried to flee the smoke filled, burning building, the special police forced them back in and barred the doors, so most of the girls (as in dozens) died! The moral of this story is the fire department needs to carry emergency veils on the trucks. (I say that only half kidding.) Actually here is what I want you to think about, why didn’t the US media make this lead story/front page news? Why? Because no one Democrat or Republican, is willing to do anything that might cause the Saudi’s not to want to sell us every drop of oil they’ve got.

Rehab for the our oil addiction, the first of 12 steps

As that I am a fan of delivering bad new bluntly, they is no way to cut 75% of our Mid East oil imports, by 2025, unless… well hmm… unless we start building nuclear and coal power plants at the rate we build Starbucks and make everything we can find electric. However, coal and nuclear aren’t really the best solution since neither is all that clean, and too many things have to change for electric or hydrogen power to be practical. Now if someone finds a way to make a practical, low cost fusion reactor, in the next few years, then we a set cause besides the huge amounts of clean energy we can simple use CO2 captured from the air and steam as a reactor coolant, then pass this over if I recall an iron or nickel catalyst and bam you’ve make methane/methanol. Then we convert the cars to run on methanol and we don’t even have to really alter the fuel distribution and sale infrastructure very. (In theory making methanol is possible using fission reactors, but since they have to be run at very high temp and pressure to do this it isn’t all that practical with the current generation of reactors.) Why is altering millions of cars to run on methanol easier than getting them to run on hydrogen or electricity? Well most newer cars the change to methanol requires changing a few seals and hoses, plus telling the computer to inject more fuel. Sure methanol is a lousy fuel since it has very little energy (but it is very high octane) however by 2025 the car makers will have had plenty of time to figure out how to convert over to methanol, and the technological advances required are very small, and cheap. (Electric or hydrogen powered cars both require big changes not only to the cars and trucks but to the entire infrastructure.) Also, methanol is good reformer feed stock so fuel cell powered cars can fill up on methanol, reform it to hydrogen (and CO2) then make electricity. Easily available methanol helps the fuel cell people. Oh and by the way we don’t need fusion to make methanol on a massive scale, we can make it from oil and natural gas, it just isn’t “eco-friendly” if we make it from oil.

For anyone that has missed it I am saying the first step to kicking the oil habit is find an oil substitute, which can ease our transition away from oil dependence. Quitting oil cold turkey and going straight to electric or hydrogen require a level of will power that we won’t be able to muster until we can’t get a fix. Methanol, kind of rhymes with methadone, yes that is a coincidence, but it is an interesting point to end on.

Put the seat down

You always hear women complain that men don’t put the seat down. The traditional response is why can’t women put it down themselves? However, my question is why don’t men complain that women don’t put the seat up? I will not spend the time to discuss the case for this but if you spend a bit of time pondering it there is a case to be made.

Fair

It is only Tuesday but this week I have already heard several people complaining about something not being “fair”. I have terrible news for a lot of people life is by definition not fair. If life were fair would Stephen Hawkins be in a wheelchair unable to communicate? If life were fair Paris Hilton would be rich and on TV all the time? You need to find the person who lead you to believe life was fair and do something mean (as in slightly unpleasant, not beat them to a pulp) to them since that will teach them first hand life isn’t fair! Then move on, since life isn’t fair but that doesn’t mean you have to take it lying down. If someone does something that isn’t fair, then you must evaluate if the power to do that to you is granted by you or if they really do have true power over you. If you give them the power to screw you then don’t bitch cause the light company screwed you over and never do anything, sit down and write them a well worded letter explaining your issue and mail it. Don’t be mean, and if you call them on the phone the most powerful words you can say to the customer service rep is “I know this isn’t your fault but _____” Make them want to help you, and if it is in their power they likely will.
If the person not being fair is your boss or someone more powerful, unless they answer to no one then chances are you have recourse. In theory companies and governments are set up to be fair. So if you’re not being treated fairly, then you have recourse, and you need not even take the recourse, simply asking for special forms or the rumor that you are asking for certain forms is often enough to solicit change.
Now, then if what is unfair to you, is fair or normal to everyone else, you’re up the creek. A bit of advice, the more people involved in a “conspiracy” against you, (unless you can trace the source to a single individual) the more likely it is that it is in your head.
To close, life isn’t fair, but if you don’t simply accept that fact, and you actually strive to make life fairer, then it likely your life will improve. Sure Paris Hilton will still be rich and on TV, and you won’t be, but things won’t be quite as unfair.

Obituaries and immortality

I was flipping through my local paper yesterday when I came across the obituaries section. Normally I don’t look at it since I find it morbid, but this time I looked. I found it decidedly odd, not odd in a bad way, just strange. Each one was like a little biography, noting the key moments in their lives and the people they shared their lives with. I found this to be actually quite a fitting tribute. Most people live and die relatively anonymously, with only the select few achieving the notoriety required (which in theory means they have done something of general interest) to have their lives documented in format that could be bound. So, for those who never achieve their 15 minutes of fame while they are alive, death and a well written obituary will ensure that someone you’ve never met will remember, if not your name, at least your deeds and that is the immortally that fame brings.

Counting your chickens

Remember you shouldn't count your chickens until they hatch, even if you have been told they all hatched, and that you can begin counting.

Iran’s little problem

I have figured out a way to solve Iran’s little problem with the Moly in their UF4. It isn’t all that efficient, but it scales up easily, and technologically it is about as hard as oil refining. So, if cost is no object, any country could have ultra pure U 235/238 for enrichment. I haven’t been able to find anything on the net about purifying uranium tetrafluoride this way, so either it is classified or hasn’t been done (or I didn't look hard enough.) On the off chance I have discovered something new I won’t go into detail, but I checked the tables and there is no chemical or physical reason it wouldn’t work. (It might not be all that safe, but really who’s counting?) The nice thing is I haven't given anything away, since this is wayyyyy out of the box thinking.

I would wish Iran luck in finding a solution, but even if it is the nice thing to say, I don’t mean it. So, instead I say I hope they unbalance their centrifuges, or at least deeply score the bearings and ruin the spindles. If anyone wants to know how it works, well tough, I’m not telling. It is one thing to say it can be done by a method that is novel; it is another to help hostile nations, ruled my mad men, develop nuclear technology. Just ask Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

Iran and uranium enrichment

Iran’s threat to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons is an empty threat at best. Based on what I have seen Iran’s stocks of UF4 gas is too contaminated with Moly and other heavy metals to be converted to UF6. Why does a little Moly hurt? Because during the conversion to UF4 to UF6 the Moly (and other metals) will react with the fluorine gas, and become solid. This will clog the pipes and valves and slow the conversion. If they do manage to keep the pipes from clogging then the tiny particles will destroy to centrifuges used to enrich the U235. If the gas centrifuges are destroyed not only would it be a financial and environmental disaster. Sure Iran would lose a lot of uranium but uranium is cheap, they are careful since the centrifuges are difficult to replace.
Now why don’t they purify their uranium, since it is fairly easy to do? The way you get rid of Moly and other metals that are more reactive than U, is thermal decomposition, which basically takes UF4 and decomposes it to U and F2 X 2. Then the U is distilled off leaving the impurities behind and the fluorine gas separated before it can recombine with the U. Well this is easy to do on a small scale, perhaps even a couple of kgs, but Iran needs to refine tons of U. Fluorine is nasty nasty stuff, (F is so electronegative that it can under certain circumstances bond with the noble gases), so working with it on a large-scale requires very special technologies. Only a few countries have these technologies and most aren’t willing to share them.
I am not saying Iran isn’t a nuclear threat. They could refine enough U235 to feed a fission reactor. After several years of reprocessing spent fuel rods Iran might have enough Pu to build nuclear weapons. However, it is hard to reprocess spent fuel, and it is even harder to do it and avoid detection. I personally don’t think Israel would take Iran’s nuclear ambitions lightly and if Iran did begin to reprocess, Israel would make it very hard.
Basically Iran enriching because they want something and they know that someone will eventually buy them off to stop. Then during the down time Iran’s nuclear scientists will analyze what they learned so they will do better next time. They will also acquire more technology so next time they can get further. If they could make a bomb they wouldn’t be talking so much, they would make and test a bomb since a mushroom cloud speaks volumes. Most semi-nuclear nations follow this pattern, the politicians what attention, the nuclear scientists want lab time, so they fire the program back up, the scientists get as far as they can, then shutdown once progress slows and they get a nice chunk of change to show for it. Nuclear research is a profitable investment; nuclear research money not only gets them the advancements in the technology, it also pays dividends in humanitarian aid money to stop, and warns the world country X is to be feared.

Review: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Ok this is an opening day review so I doubt anything earth shattering is going to come out here, but the new HP movie is iffy. The casting especially of Dumbelldoor is shameful. Who ever adapted the book to the screen play couldn’t have give the book more than a cursory glance. I am convinced if the Cliff Notes people had done the adaptation it would have been better or at least more complete. With that said if you are a fan of special effects and haven’t seen the movie, then you need to right now. The rendering of the dragons alone makes the movie worth seeing.

Searching for Eden

The search for Eden (the Garden of Eden is not where Adam and Eve lived, it is where the tree grew) is mostly concentrated in the Holy Land or for the science people around the Fertile Crescent (the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers). However, I think they should be looking South and West, in what is now the Saharan desert. If you think about it, my model fits with both scholarly and biblical accounts. Scientific evidence says that people came out of Africa, so why look for the place the myth talks about, in the place the myth was created, myths are historical accounts so you look at where the people came from, and since creation is always the first myth, it would be the oldest.
The Sahara wasn’t always a dessert it was once much wetter, and if we use the model of human induced desertification that is currently used to explain the conditions in the Middle East and the Southwest part of the US, we can see people were once there and chances are that it was once lush and green. (For those unfamiliar with the theory of human induced desertification, it basically says that a population of people if placed in a fragile area while eventual strip the land of so much vegetation and water that the process of creating a desert will be accelerated. The Middle East was once a huge, cedar forest that was stripped for fuel and building material. However, once the trees were gone, and the water diverted for agriculture, nothing else grew (forests grow on some of the poorest soils, since most of the nutrients are locked up in the trees and biomass, so if you cart away the nutrients as logs what is left?), so what top soil there was blew away and the earth baked in the sun, when the rains stopped coming. When the rains do come without soil and vegetation to slow the current the water doesn’t soak in, it washes to the sea in a torrent.)
Perhaps even the picking of the apple from the tree is not the metaphor we believe it to be; perhaps it is a metaphor for not taking too much from the land lest it fall into ruin, with the Garden of Eden and it fruit being a fragile environment. Remember the story we have isn’t the original version since apples are from Central Asia and weren’t know till much later in history. Perhaps the reason we have no knowledge of the fruit mentioned and have to sub in the apple is, because it is extinct.

Since we are pretty much already into the biblical stuff lets continue on that path. If you take the east exit from Saharan Africa, you end up in the Holy Land and what is more fitting as the fiery sword of GD to keep people from returning to Eden than a fiery desert. Even 8,000 years ago the dead were buried facing West, perhaps back towards a proto-Eden. A serpent with legs is a salamander, and salamanders only live in wet places, but snakes can live in dry places, so GD taking the serpents legs is again a metaphor for desertification. The punishment of Adam and Eve was they had to feed themselves and their growing family with agriculture, since the land would no longer sustain them, again all this points to desertification and Eden being in the Sahara. Eden is between four rivers, I just looked at satellite image of the Sahara and there are plenty of places where rivers flowed 30,000 years ago. So, again what is now the Saharan desert fits as the location of Eden, where man lived on bounty of the land, until GD drove him to a place where he could live, but only as the result of the sweat of his brow.

To end this little story I will state where this idea came from. Quite poetically it came to me in a dream.

Misconception: Feeding the world versus feeding cows

Someone who is otherwise very rational told me recently that she had heard that the US could feed the world, but greedy corporate interests allowed people to starve so they can feed cows. First off this is true, if the US turned its might to feeding the world and neglected all other concerns we could do it, but we would destroy ourselves or go broke trying. Feeding people costs money, period. Sadly, the people most in need can’t pay and since they are really far away it costs a lot just to get the food to them. Also, what does the food do? It keeps them from starving till the next time food comes. The starving people in Africa aren’t starving because they are lazy or can’t find work; they are starving because they don’t have water and fertilizer to grow their own food. Giving them food buys them time; actually helping them would require fixing the real problems. Even more fun they don’t trust us, they take our money but they think for example, that we put stuff in the food to sterilize the women so we can just wait a few years and when they have all died off take over.
Now as for all this excess food we have, that is a myth too. Most of the grain grown in the US isn’t suitable for human consumption; it is at best animal feed. Grain of suitable quality for human consumption requires a lot more work and growing conditions than are much harder to come by, that just getting the grain to grow. Cows really don’t take that much food out of people’s mouths; cows eat what is not safe or palatable for human consumption and give us something that is: meat. Being a vegetarian and getting enough protein is hard, if we ate the diet cows eat we would enjoy a nice lingering death from malnutrition. Even if we ate soy, and beans for protein, it would improve but there isn’t enough human quality soy and beans available, and to make enough would require lots more land fall to the plow and be cultivated with a very chemical intensive style of agriculture. We domesticated animals not because they are cute but because they can turn things we can’t use as food into something we can. That means animals increase the efficiency of agriculture not decrease it.
Now if you want to help save people in the future write a check to help fund your state university system’s agricultural, medical and engineering research programs, or if you want to save people now join the Peace Corps and actually go and help them.