OMG: Ep 5 has The Kurgan! Hah! I watched Earth2 despite it mostly sucking because it has The Kurgan. The Kurgan was the villain in Highlander (the only movie because there were no sequels because "there can be only ONE"). I read his bio on IMDB. I'm impressed that he's totally working class and finds work where he can. I totally respect that. Taking jobs to keep working and look after your family is a very respectable approach. In Unseeen Academicals the night kitchen cook says "careers are for people who can't hold down jobs". And you do, really, have to respect that.
Also, its new years eve and there's been some adult beverages and I've been watching episode of The Flash. Sorry.
Thursday, December 31, 2015
International Drunk Driving Day (Or Stay Home)
It is New Years Eve, aka "International Drunk Driving Day". Tomorrow is international vomiting day. And the Rose Parade.
It was crystal clear at dawn, with frost on the ground, but promising a bright sunshiney day. The visibility was fantastic, showing the stark and brilliant snowfields both on the Sierra Buttes, above Downieville, and the snow capped Mount Lassen far to my North, as well as the snowy mountains north of Clearlake, sometimes called the Escalante, or staircase. It was really a bit cold for a down vest over a fleece, and I did wish I had sleeves for it today. I did my walk listening to "Snuff" by Terry Pratchett, staring at the brilliant view and breathing the frozen and very dry air, knowing this is what the Ice Age is like, and came back resolved to do some digital driving with my Xbox. When you wreck in a game, you aren't arrested. And there's a button to press to get back the last 10 seconds of terrible mistake you just made. Simulators are wonderful teaching tools for proper driving skills in the real world. A pity my Brother does not feel the same.
The TVR, which I just drove in the Forza 3 Xbox 360 Game has some interesting flaws. The biggest flaw is it is too fast. It would genuinely be improved by slowing the hell down with a much smaller engine and race in a slower class rather than the GP it is designed for. Its a beautiful car. But it has a big engine which gets a surge of power, late, making it something that throws you into a ditch on many corners. Managing the power, and timing the boost, is really hard to do. Its around 2400 pounds, but has 380 HP and 350 lb-ft of torque, which is enough to break the tires loose. This is a bad combination in a front engine rear wheel drive car. I do recommend, when driving arcade simulators like this, to use the cockpit view since that allows you to react like you would in a real car and drastically improves you reaction times to loose tires and braking for corners properly, because you can judge your speed and the distance.
I have noticed, living as I do in the mountains, that torque is your friend. Turbos have to be kept revved high to stabilize the boost pressure and if you spin up and down with lots of corners you boost will try to break your tires free around the apex, and then the car will try to kill you. Most people consider that a bad thing. I think Dad was really smart not to get a turbo version of his car. In most cases that turbo will kill you here.
My alcohol of choice this holiday is a mix of stout, hard cider (carbonated), and Zinfandel. Some of each, I think. No liquor, no scotch. Scotch sneaks up on me, and its a little too easy to drink too much, and regret it later. I won't be driving anywhere, except on the simulator, so that's just fine. And I've got cheesy poofs.
Not that kind. These are fancy puff pastry you bake in the oven. Healthier than pizza, that is certain. It is amazing how we are having brilliant sunny days yet as warm as the sun feels, the shady side of you is so COLD it actually hurts. I'm telling you, you can feel the warning of the coming ice age this time of year.
Anyway. Yeah. Bring it.
It was crystal clear at dawn, with frost on the ground, but promising a bright sunshiney day. The visibility was fantastic, showing the stark and brilliant snowfields both on the Sierra Buttes, above Downieville, and the snow capped Mount Lassen far to my North, as well as the snowy mountains north of Clearlake, sometimes called the Escalante, or staircase. It was really a bit cold for a down vest over a fleece, and I did wish I had sleeves for it today. I did my walk listening to "Snuff" by Terry Pratchett, staring at the brilliant view and breathing the frozen and very dry air, knowing this is what the Ice Age is like, and came back resolved to do some digital driving with my Xbox. When you wreck in a game, you aren't arrested. And there's a button to press to get back the last 10 seconds of terrible mistake you just made. Simulators are wonderful teaching tools for proper driving skills in the real world. A pity my Brother does not feel the same.
The TVR, which I just drove in the Forza 3 Xbox 360 Game has some interesting flaws. The biggest flaw is it is too fast. It would genuinely be improved by slowing the hell down with a much smaller engine and race in a slower class rather than the GP it is designed for. Its a beautiful car. But it has a big engine which gets a surge of power, late, making it something that throws you into a ditch on many corners. Managing the power, and timing the boost, is really hard to do. Its around 2400 pounds, but has 380 HP and 350 lb-ft of torque, which is enough to break the tires loose. This is a bad combination in a front engine rear wheel drive car. I do recommend, when driving arcade simulators like this, to use the cockpit view since that allows you to react like you would in a real car and drastically improves you reaction times to loose tires and braking for corners properly, because you can judge your speed and the distance.
I have noticed, living as I do in the mountains, that torque is your friend. Turbos have to be kept revved high to stabilize the boost pressure and if you spin up and down with lots of corners you boost will try to break your tires free around the apex, and then the car will try to kill you. Most people consider that a bad thing. I think Dad was really smart not to get a turbo version of his car. In most cases that turbo will kill you here.
My alcohol of choice this holiday is a mix of stout, hard cider (carbonated), and Zinfandel. Some of each, I think. No liquor, no scotch. Scotch sneaks up on me, and its a little too easy to drink too much, and regret it later. I won't be driving anywhere, except on the simulator, so that's just fine. And I've got cheesy poofs.
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Scifi Technology For the Next Decade
Despite my grouchy doominess, there are technologies that can bring a brighter future, once the govt gets out of the way.
Billiard-ball nuclear reactor. A few grams of uranium wrapped in carbon fiber the size and shape of a billiard ball. Invented at MIT by a team of Chinese and American scientists. Physically impossible to melt down because the uranium can't get close enough together to overheat and burn through the carbon fiber. Handling is automated by robots. Construction time for reactors is seven years instead of ten-plus for standard reactor designs. Expect these everywhere in the world. Oh, and the largest pile of uranium ore? It's under Tennessee.
Fracking is a thing. Thanks to fracking, the USA is the largest oil exporting nation again. We export more than the USSR. Side effect of fracking is the release of natural gas along with oil and tar droplets. The gas can't really be exported, so that's going to end up a major fuel for domestic use for the next 40 years or so. Fracking is going to last around 40 years, rough estimate. Possibly longer, but probably about that long. Cleanup of the benzene will probably take longer. To be fair, fracking liquids generally go quite a bit deeper than drinking water wells. But some deposits are closer to the surface, and it IS possible to snag the benzene from your own well with carbon filters.
Silica fiber (SiF) is like carbon fiber (CF), but costs a tiny fraction as much to make, which is most of the cost of carbon fiber parts. Silica fiber can be made in a kitchen or garage with common household chemicals you can buy at home depot. No kidding. I don't have the exact process temps and but I have a pretty good idea you start with sand, dissolve it with Drano (NaOH) and alcohol (not sure which one), then add tri sodium phosphate for elasticity and flexibility, then balance the pH with muriatic acid (HCl). Then you draw the threat out of the gelatin that results.
Billiard-ball nuclear reactor. A few grams of uranium wrapped in carbon fiber the size and shape of a billiard ball. Invented at MIT by a team of Chinese and American scientists. Physically impossible to melt down because the uranium can't get close enough together to overheat and burn through the carbon fiber. Handling is automated by robots. Construction time for reactors is seven years instead of ten-plus for standard reactor designs. Expect these everywhere in the world. Oh, and the largest pile of uranium ore? It's under Tennessee.
Fracking is a thing. Thanks to fracking, the USA is the largest oil exporting nation again. We export more than the USSR. Side effect of fracking is the release of natural gas along with oil and tar droplets. The gas can't really be exported, so that's going to end up a major fuel for domestic use for the next 40 years or so. Fracking is going to last around 40 years, rough estimate. Possibly longer, but probably about that long. Cleanup of the benzene will probably take longer. To be fair, fracking liquids generally go quite a bit deeper than drinking water wells. But some deposits are closer to the surface, and it IS possible to snag the benzene from your own well with carbon filters.
Silica fiber (SiF) is like carbon fiber (CF), but costs a tiny fraction as much to make, which is most of the cost of carbon fiber parts. Silica fiber can be made in a kitchen or garage with common household chemicals you can buy at home depot. No kidding. I don't have the exact process temps and but I have a pretty good idea you start with sand, dissolve it with Drano (NaOH) and alcohol (not sure which one), then add tri sodium phosphate for elasticity and flexibility, then balance the pH with muriatic acid (HCl). Then you draw the threat out of the gelatin that results.
The gelatin is the same stuff you make aerogels from, one of the lightest and best insulators known, and the thread is so strong you can't cut it with shears. It damages steel blades. You have to cut it with a torch. Silica fiber can be woven or knitted for greater strength and the fabric can be used for bulletproof vests, or more importantly, car parts. Car parts that weigh like carbon fiber but doesn't shatter on impact and resists the cracking problem so it actually lasts properly. Silica fiber would revolutionize manufacturing since you don't need steel or aluminum to make it, avoiding the energy costs of those heavy materials. No mining required. You start with sand. And drop vehicle weights by half, so they need half as much engine to go just as fast, or go twice as fast with the same engine. This is a big deal.
3D printing doesn't have to be limited to ABS plastic. ABS is brittle. Attempts have been made to add slivers of carbon fiber to the plastic-resin which is heated by a 3D printer, however the CF damages the nozzle because it is sharp. The tip can also get plugged, ruining the part and the printer nozzle. A better solution is needed, perhaps a printer that weaves spools of silica fiber and deposits epoxy as it goes. That gets around the need for vacuum molds, the other big cost of CF construction. Right now, 3D printers are toys, but every iteration gets better. Eventually they'll get reliable enough to matter in industrial applications. And when that happens they change our world. We won't need China anymore. We can make it here instead. And owning one that's being run by a paid expert would be income generating. A proper business investment with dividends.
Most 3D printers use a heated nozzle. This is not the only way. It is possible to 3D print with metal powder and a laser to melt the metal in place. This is best done in an Argon chamber with a vacuum pump, to avoid oxidation contamination and to recapture the gas. Argon isn't expensive, at $25/cylinder, and is recaptured in a simple process from super-cooling air, however you don't want to waste it. A laser sintered part won't be strong, not at first. Sintering doesn't develop the big metal crystals that are strong in their interlacing. To get those you need to heat treat the part, generally after machining the part to size. 3D printing isn't accurate enough to avoid machining. It might be necessary to heat treat twice, once to make big enough crystals to take the stress of machining, and final for full strength. But the upside there is you can treat in batches, and its simple technology. So imagine you've got an old car part that's broken. You can either weld it together to get a map of the broken part, then correct it back to a working spec and recreate the part with laser sintering, machining and heat treat into proper hardness, or you can repair, machine, and heat treat. A laser sintering 3D printer should be in every modern machine shop, much like a CNC able to do up to engine blocks in size. Put a big V8 or V10 in there to fix it up after adding metal to worn areas via welding or laser sintering. Make new pistons. Replace broken rods. No more centralized auto industry in Detroit's ruins.
RVs and trailers can be made much lighter and stronger with SiF. This reduces the size of the engine needed, improving fuel economy and reducing costs to the point they are cheaper than an apartment, which also justifies more parks for these vehicles and running those parks properly for working couples in careers that justify more mobility. Mobility frees you from a bad boss. Bosses have forgotten how to be decent, probably some kind of human nature flaw. We can't fix people, but we don't have to stand still for abuse. Mobility enabled by RVs and Trailers is justified with the modern economy. Running a good trailer park will be a proper career.
Arsenic-Selenium (AsSe) based solar cells are 44% efficient, compared to around 18% with the best Osmium based panels from China. Naturally, this upsets China, so try and find references to this compound on the internet. I know it exists. I have read white papers on it. Most homes are getting cheap Chinese panels with 12-16% efficiency, and no cooling loop to protect them from heat-degradation. The AsSe panels DO need a cooling loop, sometimes called a hybrid panel, since the waste heat is captured and used to preheat cold water going to your house water heater, reducing heating costs. The raw materials for AsSe are in the San Joaquin River, as runoff from the Sierras and farming waste water from the San Joaquin Valley. And you clean up the environment as you pull the ions out of the water. Being over twice as efficient, you only need half as many panels... or you get twice as much power to use. But wait! There's more.
The basic rounded shape of an Airstream is iconic, but is also very efficient and strong. The curves are strong yet flex. Imagine replacing the aluminum with SiF in the same shape, and then covering the SiF with fake wood trim decals and window covers/awnings so you can secure it while working or travelling. The upside is SiF will also allow for cheaper and more efficient aerogel insulation and removing aluminum from the skin will reduce heat transfer.
Tar is being mined, so asphalt is getting expensive. Eventually only rich communities will have asphalt roads. Most will switch to cast concrete, using natural gas to make the concrete. This is an okay road surface, though bumpy and brittle. Concrete breaks under the pounding of heavy semi trailers with 100 PSI tires. It has to be replaced every 4-6 years. A modern car will need more suspension travel to deal with post-asphalt roads, and all wheel drive to avoid getting stuck. Non-essential roads in poor areas will revert to gravel and dirt roads. Crossing those will get expensive and dusty. Variable ride-height suspension will become important in both vehicles and trailers. Keep that in mind. We have already had the most pavement we will ever have. That's a fact of economics, until such time as a self-maintaining pavement nanite can be created which won't overrun the earth and merely sticks to road surfaces, perhaps fed with a sprayer from a water truck? Something like that. Imagine a really strong and durable mold that binds rocks together. We don't have that yet, but in 40 years? Who knows. Getting that stuff on your car paint might become a maintenance hassle. The Law of Unintended Consequences is not a strongly worded suggestion.
In coastal areas, sailboats are a completely viable RV. Most of the technology for living in an RV also works on a boat. And you still need hookups to remove the waste water. The modern designs made from bent plywood are amazingly clever use of materials, and very strong as well as light. The picture below is under 20 feet long, and will sleep a couple people. I suspect this design would work well in the Gulf and Atlantic, as well as lakes, since its under 500 pounds. You'd want something much larger for the Pacific, since the waves here are huge. I rarely saw swells less than 3 feet, so a 30 foot plus boat would be a good idea. That also gives you more space for galley, sleeping, bathroom and shower, and your water purification system, as well as solar panels on the hull to power everything. Imagine that, designed for two crew, with berths for more people. This is more than just mobility, this is a vessel that opens up the PNW properly, as well as Baja's port-potential, and shipping up and down the coast all the way to Chile and up to Alaska, Siberia, and Japan.
Siberia has a lot to offer the world, starting with its mechanical engineers and to archaeology. It has a river valley that did not freeze during the last ice age, and is known to contain occupied sites dating back 40K years. That's a big deal in science. Siberia is a long way from Moscow, and really deserves its own govt. Its been ruled by distant and largely indifferent czars who only look West. California has more in common with Siberia than it does with most of Europe or New York City.
Baja California and the western coast of Africa are the next big areas for population expansion, when cheap water desalination happens. As much as I like the fantasy of the DeKa solution, its not very efficient and demands a lot of heat, when it really should be using vacuum decompression to lower the boiling point and extract water with less effort and energy. If you could make it more efficient, enough to generate cheap desalinated water you could be piping drinking water for irrigation purposes inland. That only happens with a scalable solution. Deka isn't that solution.
The NE corner of Brazil, near the equator, is flooded half the year, and dry half the year. Its largely unusable land. If you did a LOT of civil engineering, especially soils engineering and drainage, you could probably get 1/3 of it useful growing crops, which would support human settlement. If you can capture the rains into ponds for use in the dry half of the year, this would work. Brazil is mostly rich people exploiting poor people, and poor people murdering each other. Communism was tried and failed. A military junta killed most of them. Brazil is a huge country and would benefit from a trading partner that can help them raise living standards while still making a profit.
Mexico is hopelessly corrupt. Perhaps this can be used. Selling off patches of coastal land might work, provided the owners can be assured it won't be seized like Mexico did to Standard Oil in 1925, a big reason few companies invest in Mexico. They did it before so they'd do it again. If rich companies or families could buy up a few hundred square miles of Baja's coast at a time, and develop the port and land into a city, and keep it, that's employment and improvement Mexico can't do itself. Semi-autonomous cities like Monaco has worked for the Cote D'Azur, and would work in Baja. Club Med already operates like that, with armed guards on the perimeter, keeping out the kidnapping gangs. Repeat this design-autonomy idea in Africa and you get development from the coasts, and trading between those an inland, with a port to provide the secure transit from civilized countries. We are going to have to deal with Mexico in the next few years, and hopefully it will benefit both nations. And maybe stop the illegals.
RVs and trailers can be made much lighter and stronger with SiF. This reduces the size of the engine needed, improving fuel economy and reducing costs to the point they are cheaper than an apartment, which also justifies more parks for these vehicles and running those parks properly for working couples in careers that justify more mobility. Mobility frees you from a bad boss. Bosses have forgotten how to be decent, probably some kind of human nature flaw. We can't fix people, but we don't have to stand still for abuse. Mobility enabled by RVs and Trailers is justified with the modern economy. Running a good trailer park will be a proper career.
Arsenic-Selenium (AsSe) based solar cells are 44% efficient, compared to around 18% with the best Osmium based panels from China. Naturally, this upsets China, so try and find references to this compound on the internet. I know it exists. I have read white papers on it. Most homes are getting cheap Chinese panels with 12-16% efficiency, and no cooling loop to protect them from heat-degradation. The AsSe panels DO need a cooling loop, sometimes called a hybrid panel, since the waste heat is captured and used to preheat cold water going to your house water heater, reducing heating costs. The raw materials for AsSe are in the San Joaquin River, as runoff from the Sierras and farming waste water from the San Joaquin Valley. And you clean up the environment as you pull the ions out of the water. Being over twice as efficient, you only need half as many panels... or you get twice as much power to use. But wait! There's more.
Georgia Tech science labs discovered that you can use quantum well design to make solar panels absorb more energy if you physically make them "taller" or "spiky". Spiky panels absorb the same photon up to 4 times, increasing efficiency drastically in the same physical area. Again, you need cooling for this to work properly and not overheat, but combine spiky with AsSe and a cooling loop and you SHOULD be able to power a whole house on the standard set of roof panels, dumping the excess energy into a battery bank, and the excess from that into a water heater (heat sink). You'd be looking at 75% efficiency. And you could also be charging up an electric car or motorcycle/bike/scooter. Without needing connection to the grid, which is falling apart.
There is no particular reason you couldn't use a pellet stove to heat a trailer, particularly if you run it off a battery bank. They do require some electricity. Excess heat would heat the hot water for bathing and dishes. You still need to buy pellets, but those are cheap and sold at hardware and grocery stores. And they're automated, so long as you fill the hopper. Less work than a big wood stove, and much lighter weight.
Refrigerators work by using a compressor to remove heat from the box and shoving it outside the box. Special kinds of refrigerators run their propane supply through the fridge to absorb the heat, making the compressor more efficient. Since most people are opening the fridge to cook, this makes both items more effective. Now imagine shoving that fridge heat into your hot water heater, or into the heating system rather than dumping it into the kitchen air. Putting heat into the right places is important. A really brilliant trailer/RV would do this with heat sinks and good insulation to take advantage of ambient heat for max comfort in the trailer. This whole idea needs more study.
The basic rounded shape of an Airstream is iconic, but is also very efficient and strong. The curves are strong yet flex. Imagine replacing the aluminum with SiF in the same shape, and then covering the SiF with fake wood trim decals and window covers/awnings so you can secure it while working or travelling. The upside is SiF will also allow for cheaper and more efficient aerogel insulation and removing aluminum from the skin will reduce heat transfer. Tar is being mined, so asphalt is getting expensive. Eventually only rich communities will have asphalt roads. Most will switch to cast concrete, using natural gas to make the concrete. This is an okay road surface, though bumpy and brittle. Concrete breaks under the pounding of heavy semi trailers with 100 PSI tires. It has to be replaced every 4-6 years. A modern car will need more suspension travel to deal with post-asphalt roads, and all wheel drive to avoid getting stuck. Non-essential roads in poor areas will revert to gravel and dirt roads. Crossing those will get expensive and dusty. Variable ride-height suspension will become important in both vehicles and trailers. Keep that in mind. We have already had the most pavement we will ever have. That's a fact of economics, until such time as a self-maintaining pavement nanite can be created which won't overrun the earth and merely sticks to road surfaces, perhaps fed with a sprayer from a water truck? Something like that. Imagine a really strong and durable mold that binds rocks together. We don't have that yet, but in 40 years? Who knows. Getting that stuff on your car paint might become a maintenance hassle. The Law of Unintended Consequences is not a strongly worded suggestion.
Eventually this "global warming" fad will die. Americans already think its hooey. And politicians which support it are getting abused over their religion. Eventually climate will shift again, as the El Nino provides flooding, such as we're seeing in the Midwest this week. We might get flooding here. I'm getting snow every three days, despite it being "clear" in the daytime. We already passed the warm-maximum over 4000 years ago, and its been generally cooling ever since. The ice is going to come back. That means the glaciers will start growing again, and the ice sheet will gradually descent from the northern Rocky mountains in Canada and flow down into Canada and into the Great Lakes, which should probably experience more summer ice again. And that also means ice on the shores in Maine and possibly Cape Cod and Long Island. That means icebergs down to Scotland and Ireland. That means ice in the Baltic much later in the year. The ice is going to come back, as it does. We're pretty well due for that. Whether this happens in 40 years or 4000 I don't know till we get snow on the dry northern rockies. That's how it starts. When enough water is on the mountains in the form of ice, sea levels fall, which requires ports to dredge to keep up. That's not terribly difficult, but it does take effort.
In coastal areas, sailboats are a completely viable RV. Most of the technology for living in an RV also works on a boat. And you still need hookups to remove the waste water. The modern designs made from bent plywood are amazingly clever use of materials, and very strong as well as light. The picture below is under 20 feet long, and will sleep a couple people. I suspect this design would work well in the Gulf and Atlantic, as well as lakes, since its under 500 pounds. You'd want something much larger for the Pacific, since the waves here are huge. I rarely saw swells less than 3 feet, so a 30 foot plus boat would be a good idea. That also gives you more space for galley, sleeping, bathroom and shower, and your water purification system, as well as solar panels on the hull to power everything. Imagine that, designed for two crew, with berths for more people. This is more than just mobility, this is a vessel that opens up the PNW properly, as well as Baja's port-potential, and shipping up and down the coast all the way to Chile and up to Alaska, Siberia, and Japan.
Siberia has a lot to offer the world, starting with its mechanical engineers and to archaeology. It has a river valley that did not freeze during the last ice age, and is known to contain occupied sites dating back 40K years. That's a big deal in science. Siberia is a long way from Moscow, and really deserves its own govt. Its been ruled by distant and largely indifferent czars who only look West. California has more in common with Siberia than it does with most of Europe or New York City.
Baja California and the western coast of Africa are the next big areas for population expansion, when cheap water desalination happens. As much as I like the fantasy of the DeKa solution, its not very efficient and demands a lot of heat, when it really should be using vacuum decompression to lower the boiling point and extract water with less effort and energy. If you could make it more efficient, enough to generate cheap desalinated water you could be piping drinking water for irrigation purposes inland. That only happens with a scalable solution. Deka isn't that solution.
The NE corner of Brazil, near the equator, is flooded half the year, and dry half the year. Its largely unusable land. If you did a LOT of civil engineering, especially soils engineering and drainage, you could probably get 1/3 of it useful growing crops, which would support human settlement. If you can capture the rains into ponds for use in the dry half of the year, this would work. Brazil is mostly rich people exploiting poor people, and poor people murdering each other. Communism was tried and failed. A military junta killed most of them. Brazil is a huge country and would benefit from a trading partner that can help them raise living standards while still making a profit.
Mexico is hopelessly corrupt. Perhaps this can be used. Selling off patches of coastal land might work, provided the owners can be assured it won't be seized like Mexico did to Standard Oil in 1925, a big reason few companies invest in Mexico. They did it before so they'd do it again. If rich companies or families could buy up a few hundred square miles of Baja's coast at a time, and develop the port and land into a city, and keep it, that's employment and improvement Mexico can't do itself. Semi-autonomous cities like Monaco has worked for the Cote D'Azur, and would work in Baja. Club Med already operates like that, with armed guards on the perimeter, keeping out the kidnapping gangs. Repeat this design-autonomy idea in Africa and you get development from the coasts, and trading between those an inland, with a port to provide the secure transit from civilized countries. We are going to have to deal with Mexico in the next few years, and hopefully it will benefit both nations. And maybe stop the illegals.
Saturday, December 12, 2015
Retro Cool VW Bus
Some people are a little mean when it comes to cars. I live in California and we do not put salt on the roads. For most of my state it isn't necessary. The lack of salt means our cars don't rust, so classic cars are still around decades later. This is, essentially, heaven for hot rods and classic car associations. Also for motorcycles since we are dry 330 days a year (it rains around 35 days a year). We are the opposite of England.
So when I see a modern version of the Mini Cooper, with working AC and proper sized tires and airbags and high probability of survival in a car crash? Yeah, I think that's perfectly okay, even if its mostly looks rather than performance. I feel similarly towards the Fiat 500. And the modern Porsche 911 only looks like the old ones. I drove an old one 3300 miles on a trip and it wasn't comfortable, or quiet, or terribly fast either. The new ones are. And they're safer.
So I feel like retro cars with modern comforts and underpinnings are a good thing. When I was a kid we'd had several VW buses. Those were built to be light, with the engine in the back, rear wheel drive, and very light front, with the driver sitting above the front wheel. That made going around corners really interesting because you swung over the front. Their transmission was terrible. You hunted for a gear. Double clutching was sometimes necessary. It also tended to overheat, being air cooled and carbureted, so was a terrible car on mountain passes. As we used them for vacations, this was a common problem. But it doesn't have to be that way.
Imagine the subaru Legacy with the body replaced by a VW bus. It would be all wheel drive, water cooled, turbo charged, more fuel efficient than the VW actually was, and still be roomy and light inside. Give it a couple airscoops to draw air across the engine, some crashbars to protect the driver's legs in a head-on, and then retro the instruments back to look like a real bus again. Oh, and make sure its got the multi-pane windows. I always liked those. And possibly the pop-top for the camper model. Use bamboo wood for the furniture rather than press-board and plastic. Its stronger and lighter. Class B campers are too small for a bathroom or shower, but you can sleep in them and heat your dinner or breakfast. With all wheel drive they'd work better than the real ones did, and use less gas than a big GM or Ford version. A little van doesn't need a V8 gas hog. Do this better than VW's Eurovan, the Westphalia, famously unreliable engines and terrible fuel economy and crap fuel injection. I spent hours stuck in a boring town when the one I was riding in broke down after 20 minutes of driving a load of boy scouts up 101. It wasn't ours, but it was annoying. I missed my chance for a fun train ride because of that.
Why Subaru? Because their engine was based on the VW and Porsche horizontally opposed (boxer engine), but they added water cooling and proper fuel injection. Those things are reliable and make best use of torque, which wins races and climbs mountains. The VW's strength is that the weight was on the wheels that were driving it. Apply similar approach to a modern remake, with a paddle shifter and smooth 6-speed transmission, and mind you keep the weight under control, and you could build a van worth having and still looks like a classic.
Wouldn't that be cool?
 |
| Old Mini Cooper |
So when I see a modern version of the Mini Cooper, with working AC and proper sized tires and airbags and high probability of survival in a car crash? Yeah, I think that's perfectly okay, even if its mostly looks rather than performance. I feel similarly towards the Fiat 500. And the modern Porsche 911 only looks like the old ones. I drove an old one 3300 miles on a trip and it wasn't comfortable, or quiet, or terribly fast either. The new ones are. And they're safer.
 |
| New Mini Cooper |
So I feel like retro cars with modern comforts and underpinnings are a good thing. When I was a kid we'd had several VW buses. Those were built to be light, with the engine in the back, rear wheel drive, and very light front, with the driver sitting above the front wheel. That made going around corners really interesting because you swung over the front. Their transmission was terrible. You hunted for a gear. Double clutching was sometimes necessary. It also tended to overheat, being air cooled and carbureted, so was a terrible car on mountain passes. As we used them for vacations, this was a common problem. But it doesn't have to be that way.
 |
| Clasic VW Camper Bus |
Imagine the subaru Legacy with the body replaced by a VW bus. It would be all wheel drive, water cooled, turbo charged, more fuel efficient than the VW actually was, and still be roomy and light inside. Give it a couple airscoops to draw air across the engine, some crashbars to protect the driver's legs in a head-on, and then retro the instruments back to look like a real bus again. Oh, and make sure its got the multi-pane windows. I always liked those. And possibly the pop-top for the camper model. Use bamboo wood for the furniture rather than press-board and plastic. Its stronger and lighter. Class B campers are too small for a bathroom or shower, but you can sleep in them and heat your dinner or breakfast. With all wheel drive they'd work better than the real ones did, and use less gas than a big GM or Ford version. A little van doesn't need a V8 gas hog. Do this better than VW's Eurovan, the Westphalia, famously unreliable engines and terrible fuel economy and crap fuel injection. I spent hours stuck in a boring town when the one I was riding in broke down after 20 minutes of driving a load of boy scouts up 101. It wasn't ours, but it was annoying. I missed my chance for a fun train ride because of that.
Why Subaru? Because their engine was based on the VW and Porsche horizontally opposed (boxer engine), but they added water cooling and proper fuel injection. Those things are reliable and make best use of torque, which wins races and climbs mountains. The VW's strength is that the weight was on the wheels that were driving it. Apply similar approach to a modern remake, with a paddle shifter and smooth 6-speed transmission, and mind you keep the weight under control, and you could build a van worth having and still looks like a classic.
Wouldn't that be cool?
Top Gear Eps on Netflix
Top Gear has put its final season onto Netflix in case you didn't know. The Patagonia Special has beautiful scenery in the first half. Its the second half that gets all political because the communist president of Argentina was about to announce the country was defaulting on its loan payments to the IMF and USA, and the USA and UK are the same to ignorant communists in South America. All the mess over the car was merely distraction. Oh, and they DID default, btw. If you loan money to Argentina, you deserve what you get. A pity because its beautiful in the Andes, very like the Alps or the meadows of the high Sierras or PNW. They filmed in the early summer and its constantly raining and terribly wet. I suspect there's a lot of snow there much of the time.
In the meantime, I've been following Clarkson and Hammond on Twitter, as they film their new materials for Amazon.com, their new boss. Their runabouts at their new studio, after spending a month filming across the USA, back in the UK are Reliant Robins, the car that flips over on every corner. The Robin was a clown car, but they're road legal and were popular in the mining country where Clarkson grew up. Hammond posted that his wife bought a full sized John Deer tractor with the front shovel attachment, to use on their farm. Hammond seemed a little perturbed, but he does live on a farm in Wales so why not?
In any case, the episodes are there and they're beautifully put together and you can see them now in proper format rather than pirated on YouTube. I am looking forward to seeing the Outback Special, which is next. Its great that the guys can continue to work together despite being older men with cranky personalities, bad backs, and aches and pains from those long days that makes them cantankerous.
In the meantime, I've been following Clarkson and Hammond on Twitter, as they film their new materials for Amazon.com, their new boss. Their runabouts at their new studio, after spending a month filming across the USA, back in the UK are Reliant Robins, the car that flips over on every corner. The Robin was a clown car, but they're road legal and were popular in the mining country where Clarkson grew up. Hammond posted that his wife bought a full sized John Deer tractor with the front shovel attachment, to use on their farm. Hammond seemed a little perturbed, but he does live on a farm in Wales so why not?
In any case, the episodes are there and they're beautifully put together and you can see them now in proper format rather than pirated on YouTube. I am looking forward to seeing the Outback Special, which is next. Its great that the guys can continue to work together despite being older men with cranky personalities, bad backs, and aches and pains from those long days that makes them cantankerous.
Monday, December 7, 2015
Scalability
There's a documentary on Netflix called "Slingshot". It needs editing into a short film, maybe 20 minutes from the nearly two hours it currently runs. It is about an inventor, the guy who created the Segway, a famously useless toy for people who live in flat places and are too lazy to walk. Dean Kamen is a weirdo, but his electronics and machinery are interesting, although expensive. He invented the major patent for my insulin pump, which is good. It works great. Most of his successes are with medical technology. The segway started as a powered wheelchair that can stand up and balance on two wheels, and climb stairs. That's a great invention... but why aren't those everywhere? Weight and cost. The was one of the problems with the Segway. It was $5K. That's a lot of money for a 10 mph electric toy that can't navigate slopes and is illegal on the sidewalks in most cities and an obstacle to traffic when on the road. Useless, despite being clever in other ways. There's already a solution in place for this kind of use, and its both healthy and cheap, called a bicycle. Kamen invented something that is both more expensive and less useful.
So Dean Kamen built a relatively efficient water distiller. Its not revolutionary. He called it the same energy drag as a hair dryer, which he doesn't mention is one of the highest energy drains in the household. And since the people he made this for, poor Africans, don't have the energy grid to run something like that, his solution doesn't work. I could see these getting used out on the California coast, for isolated mansions, distilling drinking water from sea water. It still takes a lot of energy to run, and a mansion uses a lot more water than a regular house. If you run a co-generation plant you could certainly use the waste heat for this process, which would be fine, but then you need to produce even more water, and this solution doesn't scale up well. Its not revolutionary.
Also, the hand slapping thing? That's really annoying. That says "CRAZY!!" with the two exclamation points. I suspect Dean Kamen was a very spoiled child, and that's why he grew up to be a spoiled weirdo of an adult with a helicopter in his living room. He constantly compares himself to Einstein and Newton and Galileo, but he's just good with electronics and owns a machine shop. That's not genius. That's hard work.
So Dean Kamen built a relatively efficient water distiller. Its not revolutionary. He called it the same energy drag as a hair dryer, which he doesn't mention is one of the highest energy drains in the household. And since the people he made this for, poor Africans, don't have the energy grid to run something like that, his solution doesn't work. I could see these getting used out on the California coast, for isolated mansions, distilling drinking water from sea water. It still takes a lot of energy to run, and a mansion uses a lot more water than a regular house. If you run a co-generation plant you could certainly use the waste heat for this process, which would be fine, but then you need to produce even more water, and this solution doesn't scale up well. Its not revolutionary.
Also, the hand slapping thing? That's really annoying. That says "CRAZY!!" with the two exclamation points. I suspect Dean Kamen was a very spoiled child, and that's why he grew up to be a spoiled weirdo of an adult with a helicopter in his living room. He constantly compares himself to Einstein and Newton and Galileo, but he's just good with electronics and owns a machine shop. That's not genius. That's hard work.
Thursday, December 3, 2015
Don't Mock Motorcycle Mechanics
Reading the news you'd think that the people in charge of America are taking the good drugs. They responded to the Paris attacks with "but the real danger is climate change." That does wonders for scaring people. Even the liberals are buying guns now. I am told that mainstream muslims consider ISIS to be genocidal wing working their way through a suicide cult prophecy where they all plan to die somewhere in Eastern Syria. I wish they'd hurry up and die, already. Apparently, the mainstream muslims will step in if things get worse, and put them down like mad dogs. Well? Get on with it.
Buying guns and not practicing with them is pointless and expensive. Fifteen years ago I put in several years of practice, enough to get good at rifles but then what? It is smarter to not be in places that get home invaded is far more valuable than having a gun.
Inner Cities could be turned into ultrarich compounds, with heavily armed cops on every corner to keep out the trash and the terrorists, but most rich people don't want that. They move far away from the thugs and crime and build beautiful and remote villages of mansions, though they sometimes experiment with resort settings like Squaw Valley (above). Good for visiting, probably not full time living though.
The Middle East only has about 10% of the world's oil production, rather than the 70% they used to claim. They aren't as important as they used to be, and this is the underlying cause of their panic and madness. Their population expanded with oil-for-food trading over the last 70 years. Without the oil, they won't have the food, and they will die. ISIS is killing them in advance of the famine, more or less. In the real world, the USA is the largest oil exporting nation at this time. Russia is second. People still think that the middle east is the biggest producer but that is no longer true, however Perception matters for people panic-buying oil and fuel after some atrocity happens.
Many people skeptical of govt efficiency are taking out the Prepper Insurance Policy. Instead of trust in Popes and Presidents, these survivalist/preppers are working at Plan B also known as Beans, Bandaids and Bullets. Beans (food), bandaids (first aid), and bullets are relatively easy to stockpile, but I personally consider finding a safer neighborhood worth more, even if you end up spending money on your commute. Not getting shot in your bed or at the local grocery store because YOUR community doesn't have Muslims is worth a lot.
This leads to a different problem. The work commute. Your average car gets 25-30 mpg. You can buy a new car that gets 45 mpg, but then you still use fuel and have to pay a car payment in a world where muslims have nuclear weapons. This is a bad thing, and a pretty big risk financially. If the fuel is rationed (this has happened 3 times in the past), you might not get enough to get to work. What are your options, assuming the business you work in still has any value when transportation is strictly controlled? You could spend $80K to buy a Tesla S, but that's a motive for carjacking on wheels. It says you can afford $80K for a car, and that you're willing to drive when nobody else can. This is very unwise if you wish to avoid trouble. You'd be better off staying home than risk ambush on your commute, or at the very least angry neighbors with matches. Don't flaunt your wealth in times of trouble. It's more than rude.
Many preppers buy a bicycle, but that limits you to a 20 mile daily commute, and you're at risk the entire route. It's better than walking, and offers a sort of egalitarian approach, especially if your bike and old, used, and not showy. Just be prepared for flats, so plan ahead and remember that wider tires and lower pressure, while a little slower, also suffer fewer flats and are more comfortable on bumpy roads.
A better option is motorized, with a personal fuel stockpile. A cheap used 250cc motorcycle gets around 80 mpg, nearly double what a Prius gets and able to use bike paths and trails through the woods, uncommon sites for ambush if you're smart about it. Preppers know this and are struggling to learn how to be a motorcycle mechanic after doing the basic stockpiles. This is personally expensive, but useful if things go sideways. While I LIKE the looks and charm of a motor scooter, and their fuel efficiency is unquestioned (100+ mpg), unless you live in town and commute in town (which you could do by bicycle), they aren't great on rough roads and have poor suspensions. A taller dirt bike like the above "dual sport/enduro" motorcycle is better. You trade a little fuel economy for a vehicle than can deal with rough roads, gravel, dirt, potholes, etc, and still manage to get onto the freeway in a pinch. Not a great way to ride, but you can do it. Experienced riders use these for adventure rides over mountains, carrying camping equipment and a credit card for gas stops and bed and breakfast inns with good cuisine nearby. This is a sane response to an uncertain world.
Keeping these running, and figuring out any upgrades to expand/improve performance or ride quality (progressive shocks, larger fuel tank, better seat, heated grips, better headlight, slick tires) are better done now, while the parts are available, than later when they aren't. Whichever model of motorcycle ends up most popular will also have the cheapest and most available replacement parts. Keep that in mind if you don't own your own personal machining tools. There is considerable variety out there. I do not recommend the Harley, however, because they are low-riders, too close to the pavement to make turns at speed, and lack the ground clearance and balance to deal with gravel roads. Don't laugh. Asphalt is made out of tar, and we're mining tar to turn into oil in Canada and the USA (fracking?). This caused the price of roads to go way up, and any troubles which shut off Middle Eastern supply are likely to drive the price much higher, to the point that many roads will only be paved in city limits. Not joking. That may be 10 years away, but 10 years passes pretty quickly. And it might be faster than 10 years. It is hard to predict when dealing with Muslim terrorists with nuclear weapons. After an attack, anybody who forced Tolerance about Muslims on the public? They're looking at a Blacklist. The issue is contentious, certainly, and deserves due consideration as a likely outcome from the Paris attacks. Things escalate, and there are many BAD people involved on both sides.
As American citizens, it is not our job to correct Islam. We can best serve our own security by staying out of the way of the extremists and hopefully live through this ugly chapter of history. Keep going to work, keep paying your bills, but don't take stupid risks or drive yourself crazy with worry. If the motorcycle is too much money, buy a bicycle and ride it once a month. If terrible things happen, see if your boss can work with you from home, or come up with alternative housing during your work week. People have done this before. It's not very comfortable, but you can get by this way. If that doesn't work, can your skills find you work closer to home, and if you need different skills for that, can you learn them? Give it serious thought.
Buying guns and not practicing with them is pointless and expensive. Fifteen years ago I put in several years of practice, enough to get good at rifles but then what? It is smarter to not be in places that get home invaded is far more valuable than having a gun.
 |
| Squaw Valley resort, created for millionaires. Housing on top, shops on the bottom. |
The Middle East only has about 10% of the world's oil production, rather than the 70% they used to claim. They aren't as important as they used to be, and this is the underlying cause of their panic and madness. Their population expanded with oil-for-food trading over the last 70 years. Without the oil, they won't have the food, and they will die. ISIS is killing them in advance of the famine, more or less. In the real world, the USA is the largest oil exporting nation at this time. Russia is second. People still think that the middle east is the biggest producer but that is no longer true, however Perception matters for people panic-buying oil and fuel after some atrocity happens.
- Please note that yesterday's terrorist attack in San Bernardino was committed by Muslims from Saudi Arabia, not Syria, but this does not preclude an ISIS connection. The FBI is investigating. Whether they will report any ISIS connection publicly..? I do not know.
Many people skeptical of govt efficiency are taking out the Prepper Insurance Policy. Instead of trust in Popes and Presidents, these survivalist/preppers are working at Plan B also known as Beans, Bandaids and Bullets. Beans (food), bandaids (first aid), and bullets are relatively easy to stockpile, but I personally consider finding a safer neighborhood worth more, even if you end up spending money on your commute. Not getting shot in your bed or at the local grocery store because YOUR community doesn't have Muslims is worth a lot.
 |
| $80K+ Tesla S. Battery-electric. |
This leads to a different problem. The work commute. Your average car gets 25-30 mpg. You can buy a new car that gets 45 mpg, but then you still use fuel and have to pay a car payment in a world where muslims have nuclear weapons. This is a bad thing, and a pretty big risk financially. If the fuel is rationed (this has happened 3 times in the past), you might not get enough to get to work. What are your options, assuming the business you work in still has any value when transportation is strictly controlled? You could spend $80K to buy a Tesla S, but that's a motive for carjacking on wheels. It says you can afford $80K for a car, and that you're willing to drive when nobody else can. This is very unwise if you wish to avoid trouble. You'd be better off staying home than risk ambush on your commute, or at the very least angry neighbors with matches. Don't flaunt your wealth in times of trouble. It's more than rude.
Many preppers buy a bicycle, but that limits you to a 20 mile daily commute, and you're at risk the entire route. It's better than walking, and offers a sort of egalitarian approach, especially if your bike and old, used, and not showy. Just be prepared for flats, so plan ahead and remember that wider tires and lower pressure, while a little slower, also suffer fewer flats and are more comfortable on bumpy roads.
A better option is motorized, with a personal fuel stockpile. A cheap used 250cc motorcycle gets around 80 mpg, nearly double what a Prius gets and able to use bike paths and trails through the woods, uncommon sites for ambush if you're smart about it. Preppers know this and are struggling to learn how to be a motorcycle mechanic after doing the basic stockpiles. This is personally expensive, but useful if things go sideways. While I LIKE the looks and charm of a motor scooter, and their fuel efficiency is unquestioned (100+ mpg), unless you live in town and commute in town (which you could do by bicycle), they aren't great on rough roads and have poor suspensions. A taller dirt bike like the above "dual sport/enduro" motorcycle is better. You trade a little fuel economy for a vehicle than can deal with rough roads, gravel, dirt, potholes, etc, and still manage to get onto the freeway in a pinch. Not a great way to ride, but you can do it. Experienced riders use these for adventure rides over mountains, carrying camping equipment and a credit card for gas stops and bed and breakfast inns with good cuisine nearby. This is a sane response to an uncertain world.
Keeping these running, and figuring out any upgrades to expand/improve performance or ride quality (progressive shocks, larger fuel tank, better seat, heated grips, better headlight, slick tires) are better done now, while the parts are available, than later when they aren't. Whichever model of motorcycle ends up most popular will also have the cheapest and most available replacement parts. Keep that in mind if you don't own your own personal machining tools. There is considerable variety out there. I do not recommend the Harley, however, because they are low-riders, too close to the pavement to make turns at speed, and lack the ground clearance and balance to deal with gravel roads. Don't laugh. Asphalt is made out of tar, and we're mining tar to turn into oil in Canada and the USA (fracking?). This caused the price of roads to go way up, and any troubles which shut off Middle Eastern supply are likely to drive the price much higher, to the point that many roads will only be paved in city limits. Not joking. That may be 10 years away, but 10 years passes pretty quickly. And it might be faster than 10 years. It is hard to predict when dealing with Muslim terrorists with nuclear weapons. After an attack, anybody who forced Tolerance about Muslims on the public? They're looking at a Blacklist. The issue is contentious, certainly, and deserves due consideration as a likely outcome from the Paris attacks. Things escalate, and there are many BAD people involved on both sides.
As American citizens, it is not our job to correct Islam. We can best serve our own security by staying out of the way of the extremists and hopefully live through this ugly chapter of history. Keep going to work, keep paying your bills, but don't take stupid risks or drive yourself crazy with worry. If the motorcycle is too much money, buy a bicycle and ride it once a month. If terrible things happen, see if your boss can work with you from home, or come up with alternative housing during your work week. People have done this before. It's not very comfortable, but you can get by this way. If that doesn't work, can your skills find you work closer to home, and if you need different skills for that, can you learn them? Give it serious thought.
Thursday, November 26, 2015
Thanksgiving
Happy Thanksgiving y'all. We have turkeys running around the neighborhood. That's what you get in the country.
I don't have a picture of the local ones, so here's one from my personal archives from the Bay Area in my apartment complex with all the murderers and rapists. Sigh. The Bay Area is a bad place.
We got snow yesterday, but then it melted within a couple hours of it stopping. Unfortunately, it got COLDER afterwards so there's black ice on many roads. As we were out visiting a friend for dinner, that meant driving home on the icy roads. I did not slip, and there was a lot of mist rising, but we got home safely. I still have decent night vision, but Dad does not.
Normally we do a public charity walk on Thanskgiving, called the Turkey Trot, however it is so cold we're not going. In a couple hours it will warm up enough for a walk. And later, we'll be cleaning up all the leaves brought down by the storm. There's quite a lot of mess.
Turkey will be roasted this afternoon. And I'll make broth from the innards. And we're making mince pie, since we had pumpkin already. Good times! Hope everybody reading is spending time with their families today. My ancestors were at the first Thanksgiving at Plymouth Colony.
We got snow yesterday, but then it melted within a couple hours of it stopping. Unfortunately, it got COLDER afterwards so there's black ice on many roads. As we were out visiting a friend for dinner, that meant driving home on the icy roads. I did not slip, and there was a lot of mist rising, but we got home safely. I still have decent night vision, but Dad does not.
Normally we do a public charity walk on Thanskgiving, called the Turkey Trot, however it is so cold we're not going. In a couple hours it will warm up enough for a walk. And later, we'll be cleaning up all the leaves brought down by the storm. There's quite a lot of mess.
Turkey will be roasted this afternoon. And I'll make broth from the innards. And we're making mince pie, since we had pumpkin already. Good times! Hope everybody reading is spending time with their families today. My ancestors were at the first Thanksgiving at Plymouth Colony.
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
Audiobook: You're Never Weird On The Internet (Almost) by Felicia Day
So I just listened to the autobiography by Felicia Day and its good. She's very nerdy and maintains that through her narrative. Home schools, internet gaming addiction, how difficult it was to force herself to write The Guild script, and the troubles with funding additional episode. She's big about retaining control of your creative efforts. I can see that. And she explained further about her position on the whole Gamer-Gate mess, and the creepy stuff that happened to her after a blog post on it. They published her home address on her twitter account. Creepy and stalkerish.
Saturday, November 14, 2015
The Problem With Tolerance
I am not a fan of this "Pray For Paris" nonsense. France was attacked. I have cousins in Paris. This makes me angry. Prayer is what caused the problem. Tolerance of non-French zealots in their borders is what caused this. This isn't the first incident, and won't be the last. France's national identity is similar to America's, because we influenced each other's development as modern democracies. France wants to make everyone French. Islam wants to make everyone muslim, not French. The Muslims are allowed to deny being French and still live in France. France has, essentially, failed to convert them. If you allow an enemy, which muslims are, at your back, you must not be surprised when they stab you. And this is what they did. Islam hates all Westerners, by definition. This is why they attack our institutions. Islam is anti-civilization, and its entirely zealots. If you allow them in your community, they will eventually attack.
Prayer and Tolerance of Evil caused the attacks. Don't Pray for Paris. Urge them to expel Muslims from France, using maximum force. Terrify Islam. Because if they don't respond with force, next time it won't be a concert hall. The Muslims will set off a backpack nuke. Islam is ambitious and violent. That is its nature. They want to kill or convert everybody, and then tax them to keep the cult going. Islam is violence. They don't respect anything or anyone. Treat them with respect, as an enemy should be. and then apply violence to fix this situation. When there are no more Islamics in France, there will be no more terror attacks there. All civilized countries are going to have to come to terms with this reality. You can't negotiate with them. You have to expel them, remove them, with maximum force. If you don't, ISIS will buy Iran's nuclear weapons and nuke Rome, London, Paris, Rotterdam, New York City. This is what happens when you tolerate evil. Islam is evil. Islam with nuclear weapons is evil with greater ambitions, and terrible consequences result.
Don't Pray For Paris. Remind France they have nuclear weapons. Respond in the way that Islam understands. Islam is violence. Give them violence a hundred-fold in return.
Prayer and Tolerance of Evil caused the attacks. Don't Pray for Paris. Urge them to expel Muslims from France, using maximum force. Terrify Islam. Because if they don't respond with force, next time it won't be a concert hall. The Muslims will set off a backpack nuke. Islam is ambitious and violent. That is its nature. They want to kill or convert everybody, and then tax them to keep the cult going. Islam is violence. They don't respect anything or anyone. Treat them with respect, as an enemy should be. and then apply violence to fix this situation. When there are no more Islamics in France, there will be no more terror attacks there. All civilized countries are going to have to come to terms with this reality. You can't negotiate with them. You have to expel them, remove them, with maximum force. If you don't, ISIS will buy Iran's nuclear weapons and nuke Rome, London, Paris, Rotterdam, New York City. This is what happens when you tolerate evil. Islam is evil. Islam with nuclear weapons is evil with greater ambitions, and terrible consequences result.
Don't Pray For Paris. Remind France they have nuclear weapons. Respond in the way that Islam understands. Islam is violence. Give them violence a hundred-fold in return.
Monday, October 26, 2015
ANIME: Korra
So I finished watching Korra (Avatar). Good series. Similar approach as the American anime we see in Justice League and Marvel cartoons shown to teens on Cartoon Network. They do a good job of not sexualizing the heroine, while her friend the inventor remains a babe during the full course of the story.
They even get mecha robots, and inventions, unlike in Star Trek, stay invented and impact the setting and plot. That always irritated me about Star Trek. A useful invention in one episode is forgotten in the next one. In Star Trek they're always recalibrating the big deflector parabolic dish into a weapon of some kind. Why not leave it that way? Meh. This is why Star Trek is BAD scifi. So is Star Wars, btw. Most of the plots of star wars are about planet destroying space guns. And moichindizing.
Korra isn't like that. Korra is a world with some quirks, with a small percentage of the population having super powers that are useful for building and destruction, and even industrial purposes. They've got scary portals that rip through to different dimensions with spirits inside, and the spirits come out, and live around the people, with their own peculiar motivations. The series is about Korra gaining awareness of the parts of life she wasn't born with. Its a proper coming of age story, and by the final episode she understands things enough to know what's right, what is worth fighting for, and the cost of losing.
Having recently read some Avatar-Buffy fanfics, one called Big Brother, where Xander becomes Aang's adopted older brother at the Air Temple, and gets frozen with him to help him through their adventures and keep him on a tighter leash than the kid normally does in the series. If you saw the third episode of the first series, Aang announces he wants to ride on various beasts as he travels. It is important to point out that he actually DOES all those things. Its the only plan he's got that worked.
Xander is the friendly version of Iroh, the only wise character in the original Avatar, and one worth watching because his approach to the civil war, to avoid the stupidity, was a great counter to Zuko, so passionate at attempting to regain his honor against a king so evil he burned his own son's face. Zuko has a great character arc, completely unlike Draco Malfoy, who was merely an opportunistic racist parasite. Rowling wasn't very skilled at writing villains. Avatar is better in every way, and so much more satisfying by its conclusion.
I wondered if having Xander around Korra would allow him to activate his superpower. In the fanfic, Xander becomes the obsession of Zuko's insane lightning shooting sister. In Korra, would he have stopped the mecha being built by distracting the Metal Empress from finishing her purple-maser weapon? Probably. Xander's superpower is being irresistable to monster-women. Kuvira is relentlessly ambitious as well as competent. Republic City wouldn't have gotten so damaged if Xander were giving her a creepy smile and a funny limp. Would Xander have been able to offer better advice to the love triangle of Korra, Asami, and Mako? Probably.
As for the ending, I totally understand the implied result of the series, of Korra and Asami becoming a couple, presumably lesbian. However, I am uncertain if that's the sort of thing that will last. At their young ages, early to mid 20s, it probably is convenient, but when the burn for babies comes, they'd drift far enough for husbands and families of their own. Even Toph's situation (ending up a single mom whose kids resent her) proves that the implications of the adventure (Sokka is NOT the father of her kids) don't last when things calm down again.
And finally, Korra ends the use of the setting because too much technology was invented to allow the charm of the contrasts between magic-bending and manmade tool-technology to work anymore. The first Avatar was mostly peasants, with the Fire Nation having metal steamships used for war, but little trade, everybody else limited to peasant living and the spaces between towns largely wild and untamed. The common high-tech was the wheel on a cart, and cities had stone monorails. That isn't so magnificent, and all required lots of benders to keep things going.
By Korra they'd figured out tools to manufacture things, and knew enough to have lots of airships and steam trains and good steel. They had cars and stoplights. Things were 1920's civilized. Anything more advanced than that and you'd lose the charm. So Korra ends the Avatar series, and it was a satisfying ending.
They even get mecha robots, and inventions, unlike in Star Trek, stay invented and impact the setting and plot. That always irritated me about Star Trek. A useful invention in one episode is forgotten in the next one. In Star Trek they're always recalibrating the big deflector parabolic dish into a weapon of some kind. Why not leave it that way? Meh. This is why Star Trek is BAD scifi. So is Star Wars, btw. Most of the plots of star wars are about planet destroying space guns. And moichindizing.
Korra isn't like that. Korra is a world with some quirks, with a small percentage of the population having super powers that are useful for building and destruction, and even industrial purposes. They've got scary portals that rip through to different dimensions with spirits inside, and the spirits come out, and live around the people, with their own peculiar motivations. The series is about Korra gaining awareness of the parts of life she wasn't born with. Its a proper coming of age story, and by the final episode she understands things enough to know what's right, what is worth fighting for, and the cost of losing.
Xander is the friendly version of Iroh, the only wise character in the original Avatar, and one worth watching because his approach to the civil war, to avoid the stupidity, was a great counter to Zuko, so passionate at attempting to regain his honor against a king so evil he burned his own son's face. Zuko has a great character arc, completely unlike Draco Malfoy, who was merely an opportunistic racist parasite. Rowling wasn't very skilled at writing villains. Avatar is better in every way, and so much more satisfying by its conclusion.
I wondered if having Xander around Korra would allow him to activate his superpower. In the fanfic, Xander becomes the obsession of Zuko's insane lightning shooting sister. In Korra, would he have stopped the mecha being built by distracting the Metal Empress from finishing her purple-maser weapon? Probably. Xander's superpower is being irresistable to monster-women. Kuvira is relentlessly ambitious as well as competent. Republic City wouldn't have gotten so damaged if Xander were giving her a creepy smile and a funny limp. Would Xander have been able to offer better advice to the love triangle of Korra, Asami, and Mako? Probably.
As for the ending, I totally understand the implied result of the series, of Korra and Asami becoming a couple, presumably lesbian. However, I am uncertain if that's the sort of thing that will last. At their young ages, early to mid 20s, it probably is convenient, but when the burn for babies comes, they'd drift far enough for husbands and families of their own. Even Toph's situation (ending up a single mom whose kids resent her) proves that the implications of the adventure (Sokka is NOT the father of her kids) don't last when things calm down again.
And finally, Korra ends the use of the setting because too much technology was invented to allow the charm of the contrasts between magic-bending and manmade tool-technology to work anymore. The first Avatar was mostly peasants, with the Fire Nation having metal steamships used for war, but little trade, everybody else limited to peasant living and the spaces between towns largely wild and untamed. The common high-tech was the wheel on a cart, and cities had stone monorails. That isn't so magnificent, and all required lots of benders to keep things going.
By Korra they'd figured out tools to manufacture things, and knew enough to have lots of airships and steam trains and good steel. They had cars and stoplights. Things were 1920's civilized. Anything more advanced than that and you'd lose the charm. So Korra ends the Avatar series, and it was a satisfying ending.
Monday, October 12, 2015
ANIME: Legend of Korra Season 1
So I have finally gotten around to seeing Legend of Korra (Avatar) and I'm most of the way through season one. I have to say the city is interesting, largely consistent with the sort of injustice we saw in the previous Earth Kingdom cities. It is interesting to see that the Benders (a sort of element controlling wizard martial artist) ruling close to a million people, with skyscrapers, cars, and airships and trains (mass transit) and an organized police force and justice system don't understand how the non-benders feel terrorized and abused by the superpowered benders. The core arc is that the new Avatar is good at three of the four kinds of bending, has no spiritual connection, which is significant in this setting, and there's a serious imbalance in this world because it is modernizing but losing track of its roots, namely that spirits aren't myths in this place, but actual beings that show up and wreak havoc when they are unhappy. They can also be killed, which is a major problem too.
Worse, there's a rebel leader who picked up the trick that Avatar Aang used to end the threat of mad Fire King Ozai, who killed his wife, burned half his son's face off, and was planning to kill pretty much everybody and rule what was left of the world. Avatar Aang takes away his bending power, reducing him to a human. The villain in the new series has the same ability, and it is interesting that the adorable bouncy girl from the first series has spawned her martial art system of pressure points that stop benders from using their power is now going to the rebels. And there's other mad kings making things worse, right up till the abused normal humans have become convinced that war is their only chance. And unfortunately, the mad kings made that true. The little bit of industrial heaven, of progress, where people mostly got along despite goons threatening people with their power... well its fallen apart.
The art in the show is still flat, like the first series, but it remains nice looking and the buildings are really interesting and gothic, with a Hong Kong flavor to them. The cars are sort of pagoda carriages with engines, what you'd get if the automobile had been invented in China rather than Germany, Britain, Italy, USA, and France.
The city gets points for being modern, and for making use of their common talents, but it also reminds the viewer that the biggest problem our species faces is tolerance of Evil. We let evil beings hurt us, and turning the other cheek is the coward's answer. Then we put those same beings in charge, so they can hurt more of us at a time. This is a major flaw in our species, and it is important to see that it explains so MUCH of what is wrong with Asia in particular, and how its depicted in this show remaining as a problem despite a hundred years of prosperity and peace. It is sad how this just doesn't matter. And I applaud the honesty of the creators who included this. It's people who deny natural human cruelty that create and elect the monsters that hurt us in the first place. As long as we allow evil to persist in the open, we deserve what we get. That seems to be the primary theme of the first season, and is a great way to teach us that the spiritual connection, the driving morality and connection with the Earth/Nature (in this setting), is crucial to sanity and humanity.
Worse, there's a rebel leader who picked up the trick that Avatar Aang used to end the threat of mad Fire King Ozai, who killed his wife, burned half his son's face off, and was planning to kill pretty much everybody and rule what was left of the world. Avatar Aang takes away his bending power, reducing him to a human. The villain in the new series has the same ability, and it is interesting that the adorable bouncy girl from the first series has spawned her martial art system of pressure points that stop benders from using their power is now going to the rebels. And there's other mad kings making things worse, right up till the abused normal humans have become convinced that war is their only chance. And unfortunately, the mad kings made that true. The little bit of industrial heaven, of progress, where people mostly got along despite goons threatening people with their power... well its fallen apart.
The art in the show is still flat, like the first series, but it remains nice looking and the buildings are really interesting and gothic, with a Hong Kong flavor to them. The cars are sort of pagoda carriages with engines, what you'd get if the automobile had been invented in China rather than Germany, Britain, Italy, USA, and France.
The city gets points for being modern, and for making use of their common talents, but it also reminds the viewer that the biggest problem our species faces is tolerance of Evil. We let evil beings hurt us, and turning the other cheek is the coward's answer. Then we put those same beings in charge, so they can hurt more of us at a time. This is a major flaw in our species, and it is important to see that it explains so MUCH of what is wrong with Asia in particular, and how its depicted in this show remaining as a problem despite a hundred years of prosperity and peace. It is sad how this just doesn't matter. And I applaud the honesty of the creators who included this. It's people who deny natural human cruelty that create and elect the monsters that hurt us in the first place. As long as we allow evil to persist in the open, we deserve what we get. That seems to be the primary theme of the first season, and is a great way to teach us that the spiritual connection, the driving morality and connection with the Earth/Nature (in this setting), is crucial to sanity and humanity.
Sunday, October 11, 2015
F1 Russia: cold track, cold tires, several wrecks
The F1 grand prix in Sochi Russia was this morning. The track temp was cold, so even the sticky tires offered poor grip and there was a fair number of wrecks associated with this. Eventually, someone is going to figure out if Mercedes is cheating. Their cars corner faster than other cars do, and they are much faster on the straights as well. How are they getting so much more horsepower than the other teams? Even teams running Mercedes engines don't hold a candle to the Mercedes team. Its very suspicious.
Rather than be ingenius, the current hybrid cars used in F1 just plain suck. They aren't reliable. They're too quiet. They suffer from all sorts of reliability problems and its not fun to watch a race where the leader pulls over because his computer went wonky or the brakes failed because his battery overheated. That's not safe either. Nearly kills someone every few races when they hit the brakes at the end of the straight after using the battery, now hot, and the rear brakes, which are electric motors and supposed to pump power back into the battery don't engage, which overloads the front brakes and you get tire smoke and the car goes into the barriers at 150 mph. Not cool.
Why don't they bring back the V12? I'm okay with them fuelling at pit stops. Yes, they'd take longer than 2.8 seconds, but that plus wider rear wing, keep the moving flap for passing purposes, that would be the kind of race worth spectating. Also, cheaper tickets so people could afford to go. Fill the stands. The obsession with billions of dollars only makes Bernie Ecclestone rich, and while the drivers get tens of millions a year, they are the ones risking their lives. I just don't buy that you need batteries to pass in an F1 car. The flap in the wing drops the drag enough for that, and there's these things called turbochargers which gives a serious boost to power when they spin up. Having a button for that would be useful for passing. And they're hundreds of pounds lighter than batteries. So yeah, this is a very fixable problem. It means dumping the annoying hybrids as a bad deal, and getting back to loud and powerful engines, but loud and powerful are what the fans want, and drivers can get back to driving instead of fiddling with computers on their steering wheel.
Rather than be ingenius, the current hybrid cars used in F1 just plain suck. They aren't reliable. They're too quiet. They suffer from all sorts of reliability problems and its not fun to watch a race where the leader pulls over because his computer went wonky or the brakes failed because his battery overheated. That's not safe either. Nearly kills someone every few races when they hit the brakes at the end of the straight after using the battery, now hot, and the rear brakes, which are electric motors and supposed to pump power back into the battery don't engage, which overloads the front brakes and you get tire smoke and the car goes into the barriers at 150 mph. Not cool.
Why don't they bring back the V12? I'm okay with them fuelling at pit stops. Yes, they'd take longer than 2.8 seconds, but that plus wider rear wing, keep the moving flap for passing purposes, that would be the kind of race worth spectating. Also, cheaper tickets so people could afford to go. Fill the stands. The obsession with billions of dollars only makes Bernie Ecclestone rich, and while the drivers get tens of millions a year, they are the ones risking their lives. I just don't buy that you need batteries to pass in an F1 car. The flap in the wing drops the drag enough for that, and there's these things called turbochargers which gives a serious boost to power when they spin up. Having a button for that would be useful for passing. And they're hundreds of pounds lighter than batteries. So yeah, this is a very fixable problem. It means dumping the annoying hybrids as a bad deal, and getting back to loud and powerful engines, but loud and powerful are what the fans want, and drivers can get back to driving instead of fiddling with computers on their steering wheel.
Saturday, October 10, 2015
Avatar (the only one that matters)
Avatar the last airbender, the only avatar that really matters (not blue!) other than the one in Snow Crash, was a wonderful TV show, created by American TV network Nickelodeon for kids, but found itself popular with adults and teens because the writing for the show was so good and regular TV was so bad. It generated buzz online and I eventually watched it, and was genuinely impressed.
Legend of Korra wasn't nearly as popular though it has its good points too, though I won't know till I watch it myself. Since Korra isn't available on streaming, I had to buy it, much like Invader Zim, but it will give me something to ponder during the interregnum between anime seasons.
Particularly since this Fall isn't showing much potential. Wagnaria is over, unless they can give us a season about the hero's creepy mom, which is unlikely to be more than an OVA.
Non Non Biyori season two wasn't as adorable as season one, though it was interesting seeing the teacher was a teenager only a few years ago, so is probably not triangle mouth's mother as I'd suspected.
Adorable determination makes me want to get married and have kids. Pity that the local women are either married or crazy or leaving town. So no hope there. I need better choices to invest in a family. I've reached an age where I'm looking at the stacked teachers in these shows, since they are drawn all chesty and have hilarious personalities, usually disaster zones. Often drunks, but hilarious.
There were some comedy aspects to Avatar which fans really liked. They enjoyed Sokka, the un-powered brother who keeps up with the superpowered sibling.
There's Toph, a blind 12 year old girl who is a Master of earth bending.
Turns out I married her. Pity the laughs don't last when it comes time to clean the bathroom or pick up her clothes off the floor or pay the rent. Humor isn't enough to save a marriage. Still, fans loved her, and she gets some great lines in the series. And a crowning moment of awesome. She's also a character in Korra, as an old lady. I am looking forward to seeing that.
Avatar is one of those cartoons which is better than it had any right to be, and you keep trying to switch it to Japanese to see if its different then you remember it was always in English, and isn't an anime after all. It's just that good.
Legend of Korra wasn't nearly as popular though it has its good points too, though I won't know till I watch it myself. Since Korra isn't available on streaming, I had to buy it, much like Invader Zim, but it will give me something to ponder during the interregnum between anime seasons.
Particularly since this Fall isn't showing much potential. Wagnaria is over, unless they can give us a season about the hero's creepy mom, which is unlikely to be more than an OVA.
Non Non Biyori season two wasn't as adorable as season one, though it was interesting seeing the teacher was a teenager only a few years ago, so is probably not triangle mouth's mother as I'd suspected.
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| Triangle Mouth (Renge) of Non Non Biyori |
There were some comedy aspects to Avatar which fans really liked. They enjoyed Sokka, the un-powered brother who keeps up with the superpowered sibling.
Avatar is one of those cartoons which is better than it had any right to be, and you keep trying to switch it to Japanese to see if its different then you remember it was always in English, and isn't an anime after all. It's just that good.
Friday, October 9, 2015
Tahoe In Fall
It is fall, and in Lake Tahoe, now that the Summer Tourists have gone home and the snow hasn't fallen yet so there are no skiers this means one thing: road repair. All the nasty repairs are finally happening, repaving in particular. Went in the fast car to drive around Lake Tahoe yesterday and got stuck in Road Repair hell. Half the roads around the lake are stop and go traffic, some with long delays and waits. I did not take pictures of them. It wasn't interesting enough to care about. But I did get to see the salmon run in Taylor creek. It wasn't much. That was pretty much over by the time we got there. Salmon runs are like that.
Taylor Creek, South Lake Tahoe.
Red Salmon Spawning. There's about 30 in this picture, but they're very camouflaged.
A couple more salmon. They're only about 14 inches long. Normally, Salmon only live in places where they can reach the ocean, and go out to sea for 3 years before swimming up river to where they were born and spawn, then die. Lake Tahoe drains down into Pyramid Lake, which is a trace of Lake Lahontan. These salmon are here due to an accident in 1944 involving fish hatchery spill. In more recent decades, there are 12 pound golfish (carp) living in the lake, big enough to eat.
This is why people come to Tahoe in the Fall. This is a wider view of the area of Taylor Creek, and the mountain north of it. This is the West Shore of Lake Tahoe. Btw, I found several easy places to launch small sailboats near Homewood, and parking too. I will probably come back there when I have a boat of my own. I am still mulling the advantages of a combined rowing and sailing boat compared to a light sailboat like a Classic Moth or a heavier but cheaper Sunfish or Laser. The lake was very flat early in the day but wind picked up by the afternoon and while most of the sailboats have been pulled out of the water (we passed many on the shore), it would have been a good day for it.
After seeing the pitiful showing of the salmon run, we drove through South Lake Tahoe, and around the Eastern Shore, searching for a burger joint. I eventually pulled into a place in Kings Beach (North Shore) and we decided they were both expensive and crappy so left instead of ordering. We ended up getting a small sandwich in Truckee and I drove us home. It was 66'F in Tahoe, 82'F in Truckee (no water to cool it down), heavily overcast as we crossed Donner Pass and 73'F up there, but warmed back up to 81'F back in Nevada City and home. As this is Octoberfest weekend I plan to buy a sixer of good beer to share with Dad tonight, and see if I can buy more of that good Chardonnay from Raviva for him. If they still have some. He really liked it. Dad was nice enough to let me drive his fun car. Doing nice things for him is something good I can return the favor.
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| Classic Moth. Imagine this on Lake Tahoe for a couple hours. |
After seeing the pitiful showing of the salmon run, we drove through South Lake Tahoe, and around the Eastern Shore, searching for a burger joint. I eventually pulled into a place in Kings Beach (North Shore) and we decided they were both expensive and crappy so left instead of ordering. We ended up getting a small sandwich in Truckee and I drove us home. It was 66'F in Tahoe, 82'F in Truckee (no water to cool it down), heavily overcast as we crossed Donner Pass and 73'F up there, but warmed back up to 81'F back in Nevada City and home. As this is Octoberfest weekend I plan to buy a sixer of good beer to share with Dad tonight, and see if I can buy more of that good Chardonnay from Raviva for him. If they still have some. He really liked it. Dad was nice enough to let me drive his fun car. Doing nice things for him is something good I can return the favor.
Monday, October 5, 2015
MOVIE: The Martian (3D)
Went and saw The Martian 3D with my Dad on Sunday. Wow. Best scifi movie yet made. Better than 2001. Better than Gravity. Has plot, characters behaving rationally in fairly extreme circumstances, humor, and fantastic special effects which help the plot. The 3D is great, helping provide a futuristic scifi film rather than "hey I've got 3D look at this!" kind like they used in the 1970's.
Go see it. See it in 3D. It is worth it. Best movie I've seen in several years.
Go see it. See it in 3D. It is worth it. Best movie I've seen in several years.
Thursday, October 1, 2015
In The Post Oil World, We'll All Be Cyclists
Bicycles. Mountain bikes, specifically, are the future of the post-oil world.
Yes, we have oil left, expensive oil that will poison people to extract through Frakking methods. The Saudis dumped oil to drop the price and bankrupt the American frakking wildcatters. They buy up the companies, and the drilling leases with them, and when they stop the dumping, the Arabs end up owning our oil (for maximum irony), and control how much is pumped out, and the money goes to them, not us. And gets sold to the Chinese, not us. So kiss off your paved roads and get read to pedal on gravel. Get ready for knobby tires and dust and mud.
Its hilarious to even consider a future with electric cars. There isn't enough lithium for any but the very rich to own them, and probably a lot of the lithium will be seized for military and emergency services use, not you and me. Even electric bicycles are unlikely. Biofuel powered scooters and motorcycles are more likely, but eventually even that won't be available, so you end up pedaling. Few parents want to imagine a future where their kids grow up to pedal a bicycle to work, if they have a job, because the communists won back when they were voting stupidly for greed and selfishness, in the narcissist's age (now).
Someday we'll be pedaling to the market. Someday we'll pedal everywhere. Even on vacation. Road trips will come with panniers, and various stops at good restaurants along our journey, like they do in the UK. We won't have much choice. It is pedal or walk.
The whining from the commuter cyclists who put themselves in the path of distracted drivers and are SHOCKED to be run over, rather than ride down the side street, all quiet and peaceful, and instead demand that OTHER people should be responsible for their own hubris. Yes, cyclists have human rights, but the only cure for stupid is death, and most commuter cyclists are Darwin Awards. They could be writing to the highway department requesting a bike path along the frontage road. That is safe. Have them build bridges and such to insure they connect properly through the various passes. You can't legally cross the Sierras on I-80 by bicycle, after all. There's no continuation roads in the critical places. Only a few miles, actually, but they ought to be built for the future. A road that's off away from the big trucks and speed demons. That's why I-40, which is a frontage over the Sierras through Old Donner Pass, covers MOST of the distance. Other parts were paved over and renamed as 80. Just finish the frontage. Make it legal for slow motor scooters too. With a 35 mph limit. That's sensible and slow enough. Of course, there's a number of roads from Blue Canyon west that need to be connected up, possibly following Bear River canyon. That's a region north and below I-80 which is insufficiently paved. It could use some housing developments too. Its interesting enough, since that's the origin of the US EPA, thanks to the damage of hydraulic mining there. The land is scarred. It could be turned into a park.
So take the ruin, put in some basic roads climbing up the canyon, hopefully paved, and sweep them every month by truck, so people can bike it, and be tourists across these mountains. If it lets slow scooters and bicycles, those will work fine. And have it stop at a couple of eateries along the way, though passing through Colfax and the rest of I-40 as it crosses Donner Pass has plenty of places to stop or stay the night. Campgrounds too. They have those every few miles through the pass. And in the future they will be quiet.
Why am I so sure the roads are going away? Asphalt is tar. Tar is oil. Oil is money. You don't pave the roads with money, when only 1% of the population are rich enough to own electric cars.
I suspect that towns will probably pave their own streets, minimally, and at great expense, probably with concrete for the most part. We have more natural gas, which is how you make concrete, and can't export it like oil. But outside of town? It will look like this.
Yes, we have oil left, expensive oil that will poison people to extract through Frakking methods. The Saudis dumped oil to drop the price and bankrupt the American frakking wildcatters. They buy up the companies, and the drilling leases with them, and when they stop the dumping, the Arabs end up owning our oil (for maximum irony), and control how much is pumped out, and the money goes to them, not us. And gets sold to the Chinese, not us. So kiss off your paved roads and get read to pedal on gravel. Get ready for knobby tires and dust and mud.
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| City streets of the future |
Its hilarious to even consider a future with electric cars. There isn't enough lithium for any but the very rich to own them, and probably a lot of the lithium will be seized for military and emergency services use, not you and me. Even electric bicycles are unlikely. Biofuel powered scooters and motorcycles are more likely, but eventually even that won't be available, so you end up pedaling. Few parents want to imagine a future where their kids grow up to pedal a bicycle to work, if they have a job, because the communists won back when they were voting stupidly for greed and selfishness, in the narcissist's age (now).
Someday we'll be pedaling to the market. Someday we'll pedal everywhere. Even on vacation. Road trips will come with panniers, and various stops at good restaurants along our journey, like they do in the UK. We won't have much choice. It is pedal or walk.
The whining from the commuter cyclists who put themselves in the path of distracted drivers and are SHOCKED to be run over, rather than ride down the side street, all quiet and peaceful, and instead demand that OTHER people should be responsible for their own hubris. Yes, cyclists have human rights, but the only cure for stupid is death, and most commuter cyclists are Darwin Awards. They could be writing to the highway department requesting a bike path along the frontage road. That is safe. Have them build bridges and such to insure they connect properly through the various passes. You can't legally cross the Sierras on I-80 by bicycle, after all. There's no continuation roads in the critical places. Only a few miles, actually, but they ought to be built for the future. A road that's off away from the big trucks and speed demons. That's why I-40, which is a frontage over the Sierras through Old Donner Pass, covers MOST of the distance. Other parts were paved over and renamed as 80. Just finish the frontage. Make it legal for slow motor scooters too. With a 35 mph limit. That's sensible and slow enough. Of course, there's a number of roads from Blue Canyon west that need to be connected up, possibly following Bear River canyon. That's a region north and below I-80 which is insufficiently paved. It could use some housing developments too. Its interesting enough, since that's the origin of the US EPA, thanks to the damage of hydraulic mining there. The land is scarred. It could be turned into a park.
October Rains and Research
Happy October 1st. It rained last night. Light rain, but it was rain. Enough to be absorbed into the ground but not enough to run down the hill and refill the lakes and rivers. That will come later, with more rain.
I am liking my research projects. It is an interesting way to pass the time. I have gotten better at it, and I am pretty comfortable with finding stuff out, and even citing my references thanks to that computer class which taught me how with MS Word. That's very handy.
I got to research RVs and fuel efficient cars last summer, and learned that RVs and tow vehicles are really expensive and really inefficient, around 8 MPG, enough so that its a primary limitation and complaint by RVers. At the same time, I was taking weekly trips through the mountain roads on fresh tires with Dad, and being able to whip through the canyons at speed, with the top open/down? Nice. No diesel sputter or irritation with a sports car. I still can't sleep in a motel room, but there's no guarantee I could in an RV either. I used to sleep poorly in a tent, when I was younger and it wasn't instant backache, and given the choice I'd rather be in a bungalow with no close neighbors so there's no chainsaws at midnight or headers-off racing and wrecking like where I grew up, but we can't have everything, can we? In any case, having researched these things I can draw conclusions from the information without terrible expenses or storage fees. And I now know I can rent an RV to see if its for me, someday. Right after I verify that tenting is impossible at my age.
My latest investigation has been into sailboats, as that is an outdoor activity I can do locally. An excuse to go somewhere and do something. Yes, a used kayak is way cheaper. Even a new one is cheap. They make them out of plastic now. And you can store that under the house, for free. A $200 roofrack would let me carry it around, and it would work in any lake, but is paddling fun? From what I remember of my canoeing merit badge? Nope. Sailing, which I also got a merit badge in, however was great fun. Pull the rope, steer, and lean. And the boat goes. It was great fun. That's why I'm investigating it. I also remember than when it leans at 30 degrees it is faster and more fun than when it is riding flat, but when it turns over you get wet with stinking lake water that takes days to wash off properly. So, how to find a boat that leans 33 degrees but no further? So its fun, but still mechanically stable and not going to fall over the rest of the way?
One of the problems with the Laser was that when it leans, the sail dips in the water, drags, and tips the boat over to capsize. Also, the rail edges of the hull drag as well. And the hull is full of foam, which is heavy, oddly enough. More modern boats just have flotation chambers instead. This weighs nothing, and reduces the boat weight by around 50 pounds. Which begs the question: has anybody ever opened up a Laser, removed the foam, put in regular braces, and sealed it up again? Maybe with a removable port, since mountain lakes would make it bulge or crinkle with the pressure difference. It would change the balance on the boat, and probably would suggest running the smaller sail than the Standard one, and maybe even swap to a carbon fiber mast instead of the standard hollow aluminum one, which sinks. The Laser can drop its mast when it capsizes, btw. They eventually added a line to prevent that.
Another idea I had was clever. What about a carefully engineered spring on two of the connections on the mainsail such that when a certain value is exceeded the line moves, loosening the tension on the sail so it spills air in gusts. Has anyone ever done that? I have never heard of it.
Well, the rain has stopped again. Maybe I can finish my walk this time.
I am liking my research projects. It is an interesting way to pass the time. I have gotten better at it, and I am pretty comfortable with finding stuff out, and even citing my references thanks to that computer class which taught me how with MS Word. That's very handy.
I got to research RVs and fuel efficient cars last summer, and learned that RVs and tow vehicles are really expensive and really inefficient, around 8 MPG, enough so that its a primary limitation and complaint by RVers. At the same time, I was taking weekly trips through the mountain roads on fresh tires with Dad, and being able to whip through the canyons at speed, with the top open/down? Nice. No diesel sputter or irritation with a sports car. I still can't sleep in a motel room, but there's no guarantee I could in an RV either. I used to sleep poorly in a tent, when I was younger and it wasn't instant backache, and given the choice I'd rather be in a bungalow with no close neighbors so there's no chainsaws at midnight or headers-off racing and wrecking like where I grew up, but we can't have everything, can we? In any case, having researched these things I can draw conclusions from the information without terrible expenses or storage fees. And I now know I can rent an RV to see if its for me, someday. Right after I verify that tenting is impossible at my age.
My latest investigation has been into sailboats, as that is an outdoor activity I can do locally. An excuse to go somewhere and do something. Yes, a used kayak is way cheaper. Even a new one is cheap. They make them out of plastic now. And you can store that under the house, for free. A $200 roofrack would let me carry it around, and it would work in any lake, but is paddling fun? From what I remember of my canoeing merit badge? Nope. Sailing, which I also got a merit badge in, however was great fun. Pull the rope, steer, and lean. And the boat goes. It was great fun. That's why I'm investigating it. I also remember than when it leans at 30 degrees it is faster and more fun than when it is riding flat, but when it turns over you get wet with stinking lake water that takes days to wash off properly. So, how to find a boat that leans 33 degrees but no further? So its fun, but still mechanically stable and not going to fall over the rest of the way?
One of the problems with the Laser was that when it leans, the sail dips in the water, drags, and tips the boat over to capsize. Also, the rail edges of the hull drag as well. And the hull is full of foam, which is heavy, oddly enough. More modern boats just have flotation chambers instead. This weighs nothing, and reduces the boat weight by around 50 pounds. Which begs the question: has anybody ever opened up a Laser, removed the foam, put in regular braces, and sealed it up again? Maybe with a removable port, since mountain lakes would make it bulge or crinkle with the pressure difference. It would change the balance on the boat, and probably would suggest running the smaller sail than the Standard one, and maybe even swap to a carbon fiber mast instead of the standard hollow aluminum one, which sinks. The Laser can drop its mast when it capsizes, btw. They eventually added a line to prevent that.
Another idea I had was clever. What about a carefully engineered spring on two of the connections on the mainsail such that when a certain value is exceeded the line moves, loosening the tension on the sail so it spills air in gusts. Has anyone ever done that? I have never heard of it.
Well, the rain has stopped again. Maybe I can finish my walk this time.
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Russia Bombs US Allies in Syria
US president apologizes. Because he always apologizes to foreigners. That's his "thing".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/11900853/Putin-request-for-use-of-Russian-troops-in-Syria-approved-live.html
So is this the start of a much more complicated relationship with Russia?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/11900853/Putin-request-for-use-of-Russian-troops-in-Syria-approved-live.html
So is this the start of a much more complicated relationship with Russia?
Tesla Model X, $132K
Book Review: Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Years ago, about 25 of them, Neal Stephenson was a member of the online association of the Mirrorshades Group. I joined that online group around the time he left to write full time, and his novel Snow Crash came out shortly after. Jim Butcher trolled the group, asking about whether mixing magic and a modern setting might be a good idea. We weren't so sure, but he made it work. Pat Cadigan used to belong to the group, and her novel Synners sparked quite a few novels, including Mona Lisa Overdrive and SYN, which got made into manga and anime in Japan. Bruce Sterling posted to the group from The Well, and his novel Heavy Weather ended up being about 75% of the plot in Twisters, which James Cameron did NOT credit him for. I hope Sterling got paid for that on the quiet, at least.
Stephenson has two distinct periods in his writing. The early tight, hilarious punk period, in which Snow Crash is his best work, with the best prose, and the neurotic boring period that followed it, in which way too many words say not nearly enough for his Baroque Cycle. I am not sure why he did that, and why there's no serious editing to fix that into something readable. Maybe someday that will happen.
The irony of getting worse is that the wonderful prose depicts a place that's more like reality today than anybody ever expected. It was meant to be highly improbable, and thus funny, but its almost how things really are, if this culture had failed in the exact wrong way. It is wonderful prose, very silly and filled with the passion of pizza delivery to burbclaves. Burbclaves almost exist, as a sort of better staffed and guarded gated community. Few people pay for staffing, much less get them armed legally, and get special laws for their territory so those are enforced with bullets rather than mall cop radios. A gated community is pointless if it doesn't have proper enforcement, and the gate is wide open, as they often are. Also, if you let drug dealers in, your security system is screwed. Drug dealers have frequent visitors, only there for about 10 minutes, at all hours of the night, and gone again. That's how you can tell. Several places I've lived had neighborhood drug dealers. Sigh.
I think America has become most of what's in Snow Crash because we've run out of energy trying to live the American dream and instead people fall back into poverty and debt and feudalism, worshipping whores in coordinated pantsuits and voting by racism. We are exactly what the Founding Fathers feared we would become: a mob of competing laziness demanding raises for ourselves though socialism and pandering. And there's not much to do about it but keep your head down and hope that if the shooting starts, they aren't shooting at YOU. Snow Crash was meant to be a comedy, but we do have old ladies coding while listening to punk rock from the 1980s. Their tattoos gone blue and wrinkly. There's no upside to seeing that. The old nasty drug hags from The Ridge are like that. And they think they're superior to the Squares with day jobs because they've spent the last 60 years high. In a way, the world we live in is worse than Snow Crash. We're a very grim and ugly place, but at least the air is pretty clean, and they still put out the fires. I think that Vladimir Putin dreams of putting the USSR back together, recreating the Czarist Russian Empire, with him in charge, but the population there doesn't want it. And they're tired, just like we are, and not interested in patriotism or death. Putin will eventually get sniped or blown up and that will be the end of the Russian Empire.
The audiobook for Snow Crash is good, btw. I am listening to the narration and think the actor is quite good. Reminds me of an older Wil Wheaton.
Stephenson has two distinct periods in his writing. The early tight, hilarious punk period, in which Snow Crash is his best work, with the best prose, and the neurotic boring period that followed it, in which way too many words say not nearly enough for his Baroque Cycle. I am not sure why he did that, and why there's no serious editing to fix that into something readable. Maybe someday that will happen.
The irony of getting worse is that the wonderful prose depicts a place that's more like reality today than anybody ever expected. It was meant to be highly improbable, and thus funny, but its almost how things really are, if this culture had failed in the exact wrong way. It is wonderful prose, very silly and filled with the passion of pizza delivery to burbclaves. Burbclaves almost exist, as a sort of better staffed and guarded gated community. Few people pay for staffing, much less get them armed legally, and get special laws for their territory so those are enforced with bullets rather than mall cop radios. A gated community is pointless if it doesn't have proper enforcement, and the gate is wide open, as they often are. Also, if you let drug dealers in, your security system is screwed. Drug dealers have frequent visitors, only there for about 10 minutes, at all hours of the night, and gone again. That's how you can tell. Several places I've lived had neighborhood drug dealers. Sigh.
I think America has become most of what's in Snow Crash because we've run out of energy trying to live the American dream and instead people fall back into poverty and debt and feudalism, worshipping whores in coordinated pantsuits and voting by racism. We are exactly what the Founding Fathers feared we would become: a mob of competing laziness demanding raises for ourselves though socialism and pandering. And there's not much to do about it but keep your head down and hope that if the shooting starts, they aren't shooting at YOU. Snow Crash was meant to be a comedy, but we do have old ladies coding while listening to punk rock from the 1980s. Their tattoos gone blue and wrinkly. There's no upside to seeing that. The old nasty drug hags from The Ridge are like that. And they think they're superior to the Squares with day jobs because they've spent the last 60 years high. In a way, the world we live in is worse than Snow Crash. We're a very grim and ugly place, but at least the air is pretty clean, and they still put out the fires. I think that Vladimir Putin dreams of putting the USSR back together, recreating the Czarist Russian Empire, with him in charge, but the population there doesn't want it. And they're tired, just like we are, and not interested in patriotism or death. Putin will eventually get sniped or blown up and that will be the end of the Russian Empire.
The audiobook for Snow Crash is good, btw. I am listening to the narration and think the actor is quite good. Reminds me of an older Wil Wheaton.
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