Monday, July 31, 2006
Friday, July 28, 2006
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Saturday, July 08, 2006
One Hand Clapping � Blog Archive � The wrong-size glass
One Hand Clapping � Blog Archive � The wrong-size glass: "Columunist Robert Samuelson writes today that whether Gore’s movie is right about warming’s cause doesn’t matter because there’s nothing we can do to reverse it.
Unless we condemn the world’s poor to their present poverty — and freeze everyone else’s living standards — we need economic growth. With modest growth, energy use and greenhouse emissions more than double by 2050. …
No government will adopt the draconian restrictions on economic growth and personal freedom (limits on electricity usage, driving and travel) that might curb global warming. …"
Unless we condemn the world’s poor to their present poverty — and freeze everyone else’s living standards — we need economic growth. With modest growth, energy use and greenhouse emissions more than double by 2050. …
No government will adopt the draconian restrictions on economic growth and personal freedom (limits on electricity usage, driving and travel) that might curb global warming. …"
One Hand Clapping � Blog Archive � Another hydrogen problem
One Hand Clapping � Blog Archive � Another hydrogen problem: "Another hydrogen problem
by Donald Sensing
I cited earlier the engineering problems of widescale use of non-petroleum energy sources or fuels, as explained four years ago by retired engineer Steven Den Beste.
One of those potential fuels was hydrogen, touted somewhat these days as a potential replacement for gasoline in autos and trucks. Not so fast, says Patrick Bedard of Car and Driver. As Steven had pointed out, Patrick repeats that hydrogen is a fuel, but not an energy source. Hydrogen fuel for power cells has to be made from something else but no way of producing hydrogen results in a net gain of energy. It takes more energy to produce hydrogen than the hydrogen yields. Electrolysis, for example, uses electricity to separate oxygen from hydrogen in water, but that electricity has to come from somewhere. Let’s say it comes from a coal-fired electrical plant, since that way of producing electricity is close to the cheapest.
Coal-fired powerplants are about 40 percent efficient, so 140.8 kilowatt-hours of coal energy are required to net the 56.3 kilowatt-hours of electricity to produce our one kilogram of hydrogen. …
Hydrogen gas (at atmospheric pressure and room temperature) containing the same energy as a gallon of gasoline takes up 3107 gallons of space. To make a useful auto fuel, Anthrop says it must be compressed to at least 4000 psi (Honda uses 5000 psi in the FCX; GM is trying for 10,000). The energy required to do that further trims the yield to 17.4 kilowatt-hours. …
So far, the numbers say this: Starting with 140.8 kilowatt-hours of energy from coal gives you 17.4 kilowatt-hours of electrical power from the fuel cell to propel the car, or an energy efficiency of 12 percent.
The upshot of all this is that to make enough hydrogen to replace all the gasoline used by motor vehicles in the US, you’d need to produce 1.16 trillion kilowatt-hours of electrcity. That happens to be almost exactly “twice the energy actually consumed in 2000 with gasoline.”
As Bedard says, if we we had been driving hydrogen cars all along, we’d be frantically trying to invent the gasoline engine.
Related, Glenn Reynolds writes of the fallacy of seeking silver bullets for energy."
by Donald Sensing
I cited earlier the engineering problems of widescale use of non-petroleum energy sources or fuels, as explained four years ago by retired engineer Steven Den Beste.
One of those potential fuels was hydrogen, touted somewhat these days as a potential replacement for gasoline in autos and trucks. Not so fast, says Patrick Bedard of Car and Driver. As Steven had pointed out, Patrick repeats that hydrogen is a fuel, but not an energy source. Hydrogen fuel for power cells has to be made from something else but no way of producing hydrogen results in a net gain of energy. It takes more energy to produce hydrogen than the hydrogen yields. Electrolysis, for example, uses electricity to separate oxygen from hydrogen in water, but that electricity has to come from somewhere. Let’s say it comes from a coal-fired electrical plant, since that way of producing electricity is close to the cheapest.
Coal-fired powerplants are about 40 percent efficient, so 140.8 kilowatt-hours of coal energy are required to net the 56.3 kilowatt-hours of electricity to produce our one kilogram of hydrogen. …
Hydrogen gas (at atmospheric pressure and room temperature) containing the same energy as a gallon of gasoline takes up 3107 gallons of space. To make a useful auto fuel, Anthrop says it must be compressed to at least 4000 psi (Honda uses 5000 psi in the FCX; GM is trying for 10,000). The energy required to do that further trims the yield to 17.4 kilowatt-hours. …
So far, the numbers say this: Starting with 140.8 kilowatt-hours of energy from coal gives you 17.4 kilowatt-hours of electrical power from the fuel cell to propel the car, or an energy efficiency of 12 percent.
The upshot of all this is that to make enough hydrogen to replace all the gasoline used by motor vehicles in the US, you’d need to produce 1.16 trillion kilowatt-hours of electrcity. That happens to be almost exactly “twice the energy actually consumed in 2000 with gasoline.”
As Bedard says, if we we had been driving hydrogen cars all along, we’d be frantically trying to invent the gasoline engine.
Related, Glenn Reynolds writes of the fallacy of seeking silver bullets for energy."
Sunday, July 02, 2006
You Bitch: The New Guy
You Bitch: The New Guy: "The New Guy
The first light fell on the magnificent castle upon the plain of Limbo. Ovid lay groaning in his bed. My freakin' head! he moaned inwardly, and turned off his alarm. He lay still for a moment, staring at the stone ceiling, waiting for it to stop spinning. Gingerly, he swung his feet to the cold stone floor and rooted around for his slippers.
He scuffled out of his small, tidy bedroom, and stood on the second floor railing, which overlooked the castle's central living area, and surveyed the damage from the night before. Squinting his eyes against the hangover, he briefly considered turning around, closing the door, and going back to bed.
Empty bottles, upset ashtrays, and general desolation reigned. The record player in the corner turned, forgotten, the needle bouncing endlessly against the inner groove with a soft clunk clunk clunk. From every iron candelabra about the room hung an item of women's underclothing; black stockings here, a garter there, and a bright red thong covered with the wax of the burned-down candles. Rubbing the stubble on his chin, Ovid frowned and stumbled his way down the stone staircase.
Turning left, he made his way past the mounds of peanut shells, tiptoed past the snoring carcass that had, until recently, been Horace, and entered the dark kitchen. Feeling the wall next to the doorway,"
The New Guy
The first light fell on the magnificent castle upon the plain of Limbo. Ovid lay groaning in his bed. My freakin' head! he moaned inwardly, and turned off his alarm. He lay still for a moment, staring at the stone ceiling, waiting for it to stop spinning. Gingerly, he swung his feet to the cold stone floor and rooted around for his slippers.
He scuffled out of his small, tidy bedroom, and stood on the second floor railing, which overlooked the castle's central living area, and surveyed the damage from the night before. Squinting his eyes against the hangover, he briefly considered turning around, closing the door, and going back to bed.
Empty bottles, upset ashtrays, and general desolation reigned. The record player in the corner turned, forgotten, the needle bouncing endlessly against the inner groove with a soft clunk clunk clunk. From every iron candelabra about the room hung an item of women's underclothing; black stockings here, a garter there, and a bright red thong covered with the wax of the burned-down candles. Rubbing the stubble on his chin, Ovid frowned and stumbled his way down the stone staircase.
Turning left, he made his way past the mounds of peanut shells, tiptoed past the snoring carcass that had, until recently, been Horace, and entered the dark kitchen. Feeling the wall next to the doorway, he found the light switch and flicked it upward.
"Oh, man, cut the lights!" It was Plato, covering his eyes, sitting at the table over a bubbling glass of Alka-Seltzer. All about him lay playing cards and the butt-ends of cigars. At one end of the table was an enormous mound of ivory chips, piled high around an untouched glass of whiskey.
Ovid grimaced. "Dude, you look like Hell."
"Very funny," answered Plato. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm working on a new Dialogue. Unfortunately, the dude with the jackhammer in my head won't let me get a word in edgewise."
Ovid relented, and dimmed the lights. Clearing a path, he grabbed the nearest empty chair and sat at the table. "What the blazes happened last night?"
Plato looked up from his glass and said, "The New Guy."
Oh, yeah, thought Ovid, The New Guy. "Man, I thought Limbo was supposed to be for the virtuous heathens!"
Plato grunted indifferently, and downed the glass of fizzy grey liquid at a gulp. He belched wetly, and for a moment seemed unsure if it had been a one-way trip. Once he became convinced, he looked at Ovid and asked, "Have you seen Elektra?"
"No," he answered. "But I'm pretty sure she's around." He couldn't imagine he'd missed seeing her. Elektra was a six-foot redhead with long legs, round hips, and a voice like an angel. Ovid looked thoughtful. "Hey Plato," he started. "Did you notice that she'd painted her toenails red yesterday afternoon?"
Plato shrugged. "Yeah, I did," he said. "Wonder what that was all about."
A loud crash outside the kitchen door caused both men to grab their heads and moan. Homer came into the kitchen. "Dudes," he said, "I can hear y'all talking all the way out in the stable." He felt his way to the refrigerator, opened the freezer door, and pulled out an ice pack. He smashed it clumsily onto his head, knocking his sunglasses sideways. Stretching out his free hand, he found a chair and sat at the kitchen table with the other two poets. "I got a four-alarm hangover, doggs." The others grunted in agreement.
"Hey, Homer," Plato said, "did you see The New Guy?"
Homer straightened his sunglasses, and rubbed his chin. "Well, that depends," he said. "You mean when he was clearing y'all out at the poker table? Or do you mean maybe when he was leadin' a hootenanny with my lute at all hours of the morning? Or maybe when he, Elektra, and Scheherazade were out playing Twister by the hot tub?" He waved his hand frantically in front of his black shades. "'Cause no, I didn't see him."
Plato and Ovid grimaced sourly at each other. "Well, anyway," said Ovid, "I wonder where he got off to."
Homer furrowed his brow. "I think he and the girls went to meet somebody out in the woods."
"Why do you say that?", asked Plato.
"I heard 'em heading out a few hours ago, giggling like schoolgirls, and I asked 'em where they was headed. The New Guy just said, 'Roscoe's baaaaaaaack' like he was all happy about it. Must be a long-lost friend of his." He looked thoughtful for a moment. "The girls sounded pretty excited about meeting him, too."
Ovid pondered that for moment. "Well, they'll show up eventually, probably with this 'Roscoe' character." They all nodded. "Oh, and Homer," he continued, "what were you doing in the stable, anyway?"
Homer broke into a wide grin.
Plato shuddered. "Oh dude!"
The first light fell on the magnificent castle upon the plain of Limbo. Ovid lay groaning in his bed. My freakin' head! he moaned inwardly, and turned off his alarm. He lay still for a moment, staring at the stone ceiling, waiting for it to stop spinning. Gingerly, he swung his feet to the cold stone floor and rooted around for his slippers.
He scuffled out of his small, tidy bedroom, and stood on the second floor railing, which overlooked the castle's central living area, and surveyed the damage from the night before. Squinting his eyes against the hangover, he briefly considered turning around, closing the door, and going back to bed.
Empty bottles, upset ashtrays, and general desolation reigned. The record player in the corner turned, forgotten, the needle bouncing endlessly against the inner groove with a soft clunk clunk clunk. From every iron candelabra about the room hung an item of women's underclothing; black stockings here, a garter there, and a bright red thong covered with the wax of the burned-down candles. Rubbing the stubble on his chin, Ovid frowned and stumbled his way down the stone staircase.
Turning left, he made his way past the mounds of peanut shells, tiptoed past the snoring carcass that had, until recently, been Horace, and entered the dark kitchen. Feeling the wall next to the doorway,"
The New Guy
The first light fell on the magnificent castle upon the plain of Limbo. Ovid lay groaning in his bed. My freakin' head! he moaned inwardly, and turned off his alarm. He lay still for a moment, staring at the stone ceiling, waiting for it to stop spinning. Gingerly, he swung his feet to the cold stone floor and rooted around for his slippers.
He scuffled out of his small, tidy bedroom, and stood on the second floor railing, which overlooked the castle's central living area, and surveyed the damage from the night before. Squinting his eyes against the hangover, he briefly considered turning around, closing the door, and going back to bed.
Empty bottles, upset ashtrays, and general desolation reigned. The record player in the corner turned, forgotten, the needle bouncing endlessly against the inner groove with a soft clunk clunk clunk. From every iron candelabra about the room hung an item of women's underclothing; black stockings here, a garter there, and a bright red thong covered with the wax of the burned-down candles. Rubbing the stubble on his chin, Ovid frowned and stumbled his way down the stone staircase.
Turning left, he made his way past the mounds of peanut shells, tiptoed past the snoring carcass that had, until recently, been Horace, and entered the dark kitchen. Feeling the wall next to the doorway, he found the light switch and flicked it upward.
"Oh, man, cut the lights!" It was Plato, covering his eyes, sitting at the table over a bubbling glass of Alka-Seltzer. All about him lay playing cards and the butt-ends of cigars. At one end of the table was an enormous mound of ivory chips, piled high around an untouched glass of whiskey.
Ovid grimaced. "Dude, you look like Hell."
"Very funny," answered Plato. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm working on a new Dialogue. Unfortunately, the dude with the jackhammer in my head won't let me get a word in edgewise."
Ovid relented, and dimmed the lights. Clearing a path, he grabbed the nearest empty chair and sat at the table. "What the blazes happened last night?"
Plato looked up from his glass and said, "The New Guy."
Oh, yeah, thought Ovid, The New Guy. "Man, I thought Limbo was supposed to be for the virtuous heathens!"
Plato grunted indifferently, and downed the glass of fizzy grey liquid at a gulp. He belched wetly, and for a moment seemed unsure if it had been a one-way trip. Once he became convinced, he looked at Ovid and asked, "Have you seen Elektra?"
"No," he answered. "But I'm pretty sure she's around." He couldn't imagine he'd missed seeing her. Elektra was a six-foot redhead with long legs, round hips, and a voice like an angel. Ovid looked thoughtful. "Hey Plato," he started. "Did you notice that she'd painted her toenails red yesterday afternoon?"
Plato shrugged. "Yeah, I did," he said. "Wonder what that was all about."
A loud crash outside the kitchen door caused both men to grab their heads and moan. Homer came into the kitchen. "Dudes," he said, "I can hear y'all talking all the way out in the stable." He felt his way to the refrigerator, opened the freezer door, and pulled out an ice pack. He smashed it clumsily onto his head, knocking his sunglasses sideways. Stretching out his free hand, he found a chair and sat at the kitchen table with the other two poets. "I got a four-alarm hangover, doggs." The others grunted in agreement.
"Hey, Homer," Plato said, "did you see The New Guy?"
Homer straightened his sunglasses, and rubbed his chin. "Well, that depends," he said. "You mean when he was clearing y'all out at the poker table? Or do you mean maybe when he was leadin' a hootenanny with my lute at all hours of the morning? Or maybe when he, Elektra, and Scheherazade were out playing Twister by the hot tub?" He waved his hand frantically in front of his black shades. "'Cause no, I didn't see him."
Plato and Ovid grimaced sourly at each other. "Well, anyway," said Ovid, "I wonder where he got off to."
Homer furrowed his brow. "I think he and the girls went to meet somebody out in the woods."
"Why do you say that?", asked Plato.
"I heard 'em heading out a few hours ago, giggling like schoolgirls, and I asked 'em where they was headed. The New Guy just said, 'Roscoe's baaaaaaaack' like he was all happy about it. Must be a long-lost friend of his." He looked thoughtful for a moment. "The girls sounded pretty excited about meeting him, too."
Ovid pondered that for moment. "Well, they'll show up eventually, probably with this 'Roscoe' character." They all nodded. "Oh, and Homer," he continued, "what were you doing in the stable, anyway?"
Homer broke into a wide grin.
Plato shuddered. "Oh dude!"
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler » Blog Archive » Goodbye, Old Bastard and, Dare I Say, Friend
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler » Blog Archive » Goodbye, Old Bastard and, Dare I Say, Friendt is with great sadness that I learn that LC & IB Acidman has passed away.
Rob and I go back a ways in this crazy world that we call the Blogosphere, yet I only ever had a chance to meet him in person once, this year in Austin. I’m glad I did, because I always wanted to meet him. Of course, now I wish that we’d had time for more than a handshake and few minutes of chatting, but such is life. Full of regrets about what might have been, regrets that really serve no good purpose. You’ve got to play the hand that life dealt you.
And the hand that Rob got wasn’t a particularly good one. But he played it, to the best of his ability.
Oh yes, he was rude, outspoken, at times downright obnoxious, but he was always true to himself. True to himself and honest to the point where it sometimes hurt. I admired that, even when some of the things he said made me cringe, because you always knew exactly where you had him. And beneath that rough veneer, beneath all of the raging against the fading of the light, there was a warm, loving man. Most of all I remember his posts about his love of his son, Quinton, in which the “softer side of Rob” shone through like a beacon.
That’s a side of him that I’ll remember well. A side of him that showed me and everybody else who cared to read that, no matter how much anger and frustration one man holds, there’s always more to a man that, that there is good as well as the bad and the ugly.
Some will remember him for the bad and the ugly, some will remember him for the good. I will remember him for all of it.
Because it was all him. He let it all hang out, that was his gift to anybody who cared, and I accept it all gratefully. Warts and all.
Now, since his second-to-last post contained a farewell, that he’d had enough and was going to end it all, there’s bound to be a lot of speculation as to the method of his passing. I don’t care. I want no part of it. There, but for the Grace of G-d, and all that. If there’s to be a judgment, then I leave it in the hands of G-d, because He is much better at it than I am.
What’s done is done. I lost a friend, but I find comfort in the knowledge that he is in pain no longer, and I pray that his loved ones find the same. I also pray that he finds peace in the hereafter and that he passed knowing that he, for all his faults, was loved.
And if you didn’t, Rob, I’m going to damn well tell you in no uncertain terms when we meet again.
Goodbye, you old asshole.
Rob and I go back a ways in this crazy world that we call the Blogosphere, yet I only ever had a chance to meet him in person once, this year in Austin. I’m glad I did, because I always wanted to meet him. Of course, now I wish that we’d had time for more than a handshake and few minutes of chatting, but such is life. Full of regrets about what might have been, regrets that really serve no good purpose. You’ve got to play the hand that life dealt you.
And the hand that Rob got wasn’t a particularly good one. But he played it, to the best of his ability.
Oh yes, he was rude, outspoken, at times downright obnoxious, but he was always true to himself. True to himself and honest to the point where it sometimes hurt. I admired that, even when some of the things he said made me cringe, because you always knew exactly where you had him. And beneath that rough veneer, beneath all of the raging against the fading of the light, there was a warm, loving man. Most of all I remember his posts about his love of his son, Quinton, in which the “softer side of Rob” shone through like a beacon.
That’s a side of him that I’ll remember well. A side of him that showed me and everybody else who cared to read that, no matter how much anger and frustration one man holds, there’s always more to a man that, that there is good as well as the bad and the ugly.
Some will remember him for the bad and the ugly, some will remember him for the good. I will remember him for all of it.
Because it was all him. He let it all hang out, that was his gift to anybody who cared, and I accept it all gratefully. Warts and all.
Now, since his second-to-last post contained a farewell, that he’d had enough and was going to end it all, there’s bound to be a lot of speculation as to the method of his passing. I don’t care. I want no part of it. There, but for the Grace of G-d, and all that. If there’s to be a judgment, then I leave it in the hands of G-d, because He is much better at it than I am.
What’s done is done. I lost a friend, but I find comfort in the knowledge that he is in pain no longer, and I pray that his loved ones find the same. I also pray that he finds peace in the hereafter and that he passed knowing that he, for all his faults, was loved.
And if you didn’t, Rob, I’m going to damn well tell you in no uncertain terms when we meet again.
Goodbye, you old asshole.
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