Author: Brian

The Carlyle funded Bush Brigadiers are suiting up as we speak:

Saturn’s orange moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. The hydrocarbons rain from the sky, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes. read more

Moscow Times is running a multi-part series. Putin’s Legacy. This is the opening text from their story on Putin’s management of the Russian economy:

These are extraordinary times. Less than 10 years ago, Russians were looking bleakly into the future, their savings wiped out and their confidence shattered in their country’s government and banking system.

Now, amid jittery global stock markets and a dramatic reversal in fortune for most of Wall Street’s powerhouses, the shoe is on the other foot. Russia’s economy is more insulated from the rout than most of its emerging-market rivals, and the country is molding a new role for itself.

Speaking at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin rammed the point home, noting that Russia would emerge as “an island of stability” amid the gathering storm.

Rout? Gathering storm?

Not to worry.

As they say, “Been down so long, looks like up to me.”

Great line!

Sociologist Ruth Towse surveyed artists and found that on average creatives earned below poverty subsistence levels, but Kevin Kelly is suggesting there is a home for creatives in between poverty and stardom. [via Seth Godin, remarking that this is Kelly’s best piece evah]

Science blog leaves the cushy comfort of theory vs. facts to visit plankton and discover a nugget of wisdom:

[I]f you’re ever feeling down, like life is just too much for you to handle, just remember the life of plankton. Realize that maybe the turbulence of life may be just the kind of environment that you want, even need.

Imagine dropping a single dinoflagellate into a glass of water, and then sticking a straw inside and blowing bubbles. That’s normal to them.

It’s a culture thing, based on the wonder of game theory. I think of money-grubbers not as up/down ranking, but a form of complex systems where congregations arrange themselves like biofilm near feed, lazy bunch of buggers too, in the main.

What was I thinkin’ a few years ago while trying to compare aspiration vs. guile?

cybernaut, capitalist, christian and cowboy
along the way from plankton to pulsar.

I must say, pip pip, I’ve seen two distinct responses to recent news our earth might die before we do. One is nuts and the other worried. I cannot decide. Most annoying, others have. Not one of us expected our gas taint our air to kill us. Yet millions rise to cure us, change us, some to lure us to greener things, as if the earth ain’t darker dirt and char in dirt might fix it. What fools took us here? These same fools guide us. I’ve seen two distinct responses to recent news our earth might die before we do. One is nuts and the other worried. I cannot decide. Most annoying, neither have we.

Using our best solar concentrators an area in the Sahara about 150 x 150 miles would provide all the electricity for the whole world.

Repeat:

“If you assume these 64,516 square kilometers (64 billion square meters) were to have an output of 100 watts per meter, at 7.0 hours per day at 100 watts-hours per hour per square meter, this array would throw off 45 billion kilowatt-hours per day, or 395 trillion kilowatt-hours per year.

“This imputes a constant 24-7 supply of 1,882 gigawatts, or 1.8 terawatts of electric power. The US draws about 450 gigawatts (or .45 terawatts) of electric power, or by these reckonings 24% of total global electrical output.”

Ecoworld imputes, “…sounds plausible.”

When a toddler slips, life goes on as if nothing happened, and certainly the little one is not keeping track. When a child forgets their home phone number, a teenager where they left a new cellphone, or if a college student is sleepless about an upcoming exam, life goes on as if nothing happened.

Keeping track of ourselves is an adult activity that seems to become more important with age. And with age, we become more able to keep track too.

A study years ago noticed that the memory of a college student and an older adult were similar, but older people didn’t agree. It’s an old saw that memory fails, but it’s more likely, said this study of 1,000s, that older adults merely “notice” when they forget. After all, they’ve inhabited their body and brain for awhile and have become familiar with its errors and omissions.

A new study noticed that insomniacs and normal sleepers use similar criteria to discuss the quality of their sleep, but that insomniacs use extra criteria. Insomniacs evaluate their sleep under a more exacting lens where a longer list must be satisfied before they say they’ve enjoyed quality sleep [story].

Perhaps a poor sleep isn’t, or perhaps a poor sleep is generally normal.

It might be important to wonder if memory or sleep is failing or if we’re merely more adept at ‘noticing’ and more impatient with our performance.

It might be important to reflect on youth and remember how many times we fell on our butt or woke during the night. If we forget where we put our keys and say to ourselves it’s because we’re getting old, we might only be forgetting that we’ve lost our keys before.

From today’s TED,

Mycologist Paul Stamets believes that mushrooms could be an intergalactic colonizing species. Well, almost.

He believes that fungi, and particularly the mycelium (the vegetative part of mushrooms) contains solutions for some of the Earth’s environmental and health-related problems. For instance, fungi produce strong antibiotics; they can be used against flu viruses; mycelium can be used to naturally “clean up” petroleum-saturated soils; revamp pesticides; and generate ethanol (he has patented many of these mushroom-related technologies). Preserving the genome of fungi is absolutely crucial for human health.

Musing during a commute in the future, he heard himself thinking:

“Here I am driving along on the biodiesel from about 100 million pigs, 35 million cattle, 1.6 billion turkeys, and 8 billion chickens and the ethanol in that ugly car in the lane next to me is just from dirty ol’ bushels of corn!”

Traditional corn ethanol processes convert each bushel of corn, which weighs about 54 pounds, into about 18 pounds of ethanol, 18 pounds of carbon dioxide, and 18 pounds of distillers grain of which 2 pounds is fat.

I got that ‘wheel of justice’ buzz from this headline:

While eating the brains and neurological body parts of their peers, a variation of ‘mad cow disease’ may have weakened and killed our early friends!

At the center of a snowflake, unromantically, is bacteria. Ice in the atmosphere is formed around a nuclei and 85% are bacteria. Bacteria are by far the most active ice nuclei in nature.

Bugs in the sky? Believe it.

[AP story] Brent C. Christner at Louisiana State University studies snow and ice from Antarctica, France, Montana and the Yukon and found that Pseudomonas cause moisture in a cloud to condense. Killed bacteria are used as an additive in snow making at ski resorts.

Bio-precipitation could affect many things, from agriculture and water availability to local climate and even global warming. For example, a reduced amount of bacteria on crops could affect the climate. Because of the bio-precipitation cycle, overgrazing in a dry year could actually decrease rainfall, which could then make the next year dryer.

Clipping found in Parker Huang‘s wallet.

A bank of whiteness

Is all I see. Have I

tossed away the world

or the world me? Or

is it just a single

moment that I stand on

a sheer precipice

with clouds passing

through me?

Some mists sweep the

sky. Some stars elicit

serenity. I feel that

I am gathering the

reflections of a flower

in the water and that of

the moon in the mirror—

no scent, no motion,

yet I sense eternity.

I stop breathing lest

I wake myself. From

where, of what world,

have I come here? I

turn my head and see

there are only footprints

that follow me.

It’s been difficult for me to put into words what I’ve noticed is failing in our media. This better and British arrangement of words says that we are seeing media’s “growing, industry-wide failure to be sufficiently interested in reality … the papers have succumbed to their own internal celebrity culture of columnists, most of whom make no attempt to report on the world, in favour of sermonising about it….” And it goes on.

Doomsayers are not my thing. Fear is faith opposed. Both are feelings and orientation rather than ideas and activity. Neither are firm.

What can I say?

What were you doing today?

Oh, performing basic research in a very exciting field at the border between atomic and molecular physics and advanced optics, nonlinear optics and laser physics: high-order harmonic generation in gaseous media exposed to intense laser fields and its applications.

Anything interesting lately?

Yeh, we made the world’s first movie of an electron.

[via Science blog]

Somewhere in your community during this hour a woman will be battered by a tyrannous husband, father, boyfriend, girlfriend, or even son or daughter. In her realm she is consumed by war, a refugee from her own home, completely ignored by world leaders who see no glory in coming to her rescue. You, however, can go to your local shelter for battered women and offer your love, your compassion, your resources. For these women who are bruised, bloodied, demoralized as any exotic refugee, there will be no American relief packages miraculously falling from the sky, parcels filled with candy bars and pamphlets urging her to overthrow her government, to choose freedom over oppression.

All around you, in your neighborhood are people who need your energy, your time, your love – an elderly invalid, a young boy struggling to learn his multiplication tables, workers who have lost their jobs, families, living in poverty. (If you happen to be a committed misanthrope, there are libraries, animal shelters and city parks that also need attention.) The war will go how the war will go and certainly we must be mindful of our leaders’ assumptions that we are stupid enough to forego our deepest beliefs in freedom in order for them to climb to ever higher power and glory. Yet we are no better than they if we remain unwilling to reach out to those in our midst, both neighbors and strangers, in order to make our communities – especially those who have been abandoned by the same government intent on saving communities elsewhere around the world – better places to live, so that when the war does end, in a week or a decade, our own neighborhoods will be safer, cleaner, and friendlier, less burdened by oppression.

Tipped by Kaila Colbin, from “Living, Loving and Other Heresies”, by Zsolt, 2003, Conundrum Press. At Amazon Bill Moyers left his comment, “If this is heresy, we need more of it! A timeless book of compelling prose and poetry.”

When your plant needs water, it will post to Twitter or call you!

Nails function as the soil moisture probes, but the rest of the unit requires greater skills because it’s a Make project that combines a number of parts, a small breadboard, power supply, ethernet and USB cables, downloading code… but what’s a little soldering when your plant will be twittering away for many years to come?

Botanicalls, via Webware.

No! Bacteria are not fitted with New Age bracelets? Say it’s not true!

A major cost of biofuel is the bacteria used in fermenting alcohol. A new technique to manipulate the behavior of bacteria in the reactor can double biogas output.

By introducing magnetic particles in the fermenter, the bacteria spontaneously flocculate around the particles and are far easier to recycle. The new technique keeps using the same bacteria at the height of their productive capacity and concentration:

Large amounts of active bacteria are washed away in batch systems, and new communities have to be built from scratch and take a long time to grow into productive communities. By reusing bacteria at the point when they’re still active, overall biogas yields are improved dramatically.

The magnetic particles attract the bacteria, which can then be recycled simply by applying a permanent magnet.

Small amounts of ferrite do the trick. Yield increases of 200% have been achieved. [link to BioPact]

Nat Scholz, a fishery biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that salmon died when exposed to combinations of pesticides that were not deadly when tested individually in lab trials.

Will combinations of pesticides found on fruits and vegetables be affecting humans? [story]

Another intriguing study in five regions around the world by Ford and Myers found wild salmon populations that merely migrate near salmon farms suffer a reduction in survival or abundance of more than 50%. [story]

Suffer a reduction in survival or abundance?

What’s that say?

Half the wild salmon near farmed salmon die or are not born.

Chronic pain among seniors in private households was more common than diabetes, heart disease and Alzheimer’s disease. [story]

An article in School Library Journal reports bad news about the No Child Left Behind program.

“Here’s a new and significant research finding that won’t surprise many of No Child Left Behind’s school-based critics: high-stakes, test-based accountability—exactly what the law promotes—has a direct, negative impact on graduation rates.”

read more

Biopact reports

According to scientific projections, the planet has a very large sustainable bioenergy potential, estimated to be around 1550 Exajoules per annum by 2050 (the world’s total current energy consumption from all sources – coal, oil, gas, nuclear, renewables – is approximately 450Ej).

Theoretically, this much bioenergy can be produced after [emphasis added] meeting all food, feed, fiber and forest products needs for growing populations and without deforestation (previous post).

But this massive potential can only be tapped on the condition that agriculture in the developing world – where most of it can be found – improves by adopting modern farming techniques.

Game Theory in government, relying on obtuse statistical systems to run a nation, has wrecked dozens and hundreds of important programs and restraints in the USA. Some people need eye to eye contact. After almost 30 years of so-called lesser government, our Executive Branch Agencies are a mess; a greater burden than big government. Food contamination and increased recalls are another canary.

Sick animals in our food supply indicate not merely a risk to health but a dilution of pride in our production and inspection system. Weak, fallen and ill cattle is the tip of the iceberg. The vast majority of our ranchers and plants are ‘competent’ and strive to exceed industry benchmarks, but cracks in the system are too common.

In the latest 143 million pound recall – two hamburgers for every American – only beef is in the headlines, but there are no laws or government agency policies that currently prevent downed pigs, sheep, goats or other livestock from going to slaughter for human consumption.

A tremendous and complex burden has fallen on us. Shortages are again accelerating costs and we’re damaging our home. The portents of our future are scaring people.

Perhaps the horizon will always provoke fear, but I’m worried too about our too common and modern urge to hoist rule making to guide us forward.

Why? For two reasons. I’m not impressed with current agencies and I’m less impressed with their leadership. The former are populated by both strong hearts and wicked guile, ineffectual by not confronting each other, and our leadership is either nuts or inadequate.

I don’t look to toothless bureaucrats for new directions in living. Instead I watch analysts and innovators, and I re-invent living with greater attention to the parity of my resources. I steer toward new solutions and I’m not alone. Many of us are using our conscience and choosing new if not pleasantly elegant ways of living. Less is indeed more and I know we’re not rolling rocks uphill.

Fear can easily become fashion and we’re vulnerable to error. I’m worried about a new intelligentsia joining a libertine and moneyed wealth to penetrate our policy making with new but similarly self-serving ideology. On one side hidden incentives and on the other tight restraints, there’s an emerging tailored agenda parading to save our earth that may raise its green flag but also a rigid technocracy.

There’s steam behind this movement too, not only because our industrial landscape crumbles, but also because the new left is strong after decades of momentum flailing against corporate reactionaries, that’s what they are, and fundamentalists seduced by power, that’s what they are. Corn fuels some of them, sugarcane others. Desperate for electricity for a plug-in hi-way, many are now promoting easing rules for nuclear power. Hello. Soy candles might be legal in the bedroom; paraffin soon illegal in the kitchen too.

Will the former anarchists of environmentalism become the next authoritarians of State?

I mistrust our recent past. With the blood of many, we’ve argued false issues propelled by bantam minds.

If we’re lucky to see it, Mike Bowden says it, “When you see real leadership in action, you’re left in awe. Real leaders are active, engaged and motivating. They create an atmosphere that’s electric – both fun and productive.” This is very different than Pennsylvania Avenue’s pandering to cronies and populism.

Our task isn’t easy. Australia’s government worries that cutting greenhouse gases 60% by 2050, a terrific task, will be inadequate. Here in America, while creationists spoil one federal agenda and greed corrupts others, the growth rate in the world’s carbon dioxide emissions has trebled between 2000 and 2006.

Europe has exhibited a relative sensibility over these years, establishing policy that points to greater efficiency as well as greater sensitivity to all of their people, rich or poor. But Europe has shown their highly praised targets for renewable energy are already distorting food markets in Africa and south Asia similar to our corn belt getting fat on Bush’s Beltway ethanol subsidies.

Ireland is hoping to loft a new division of government to regulate green options to be known as the Risk Management Agency. Here’s their early comments about their mission:

We tend to treat the future as if it will be a continuation of the present but with more of everything. This is in spite of historical evidence that major changes of direction inevitably disturb well-established trajectories. We even know what those major changes are likely to be – fossil fuel peak, global warming, water and soil degradation, irreversible biodiversity loss, new diseases against which we have few defenses and increasing financial global interdependence and instability (in no particular order). The first thing to do is to name the problem – Future Risk – then pass enabling legislation to appoint a dedicated powerful agency, the Risk Management Agency.

It’s been my lifelong experience that where there’s Agency Management that’s the Risk, thus I’m worried.

But I’m not recommending libertarian or additional laissez-faire politics. I’m recommending two different ideas. One, we shun authoritarian rhetoric and easy rule making in favor of a robust infrastructure of experiment and alternatives, a more likely boost to both our sustenance and our prosperity.

For example, water and soil do not exist in hallways of new agencies but here, under us, where we live. Our best resources for living have been created from the ground up by pollinating, by selecting, by improving choices.

We must support diverse innovation, locally and within the larger economies. Please, let’s not wait for oil oligopolies to sell us the sun!

Congress and legislatures and local initiative can help by redirecting funds toward a system of assertive curiosity and eager demonstrations. A new layer of rules, however green, will again inhibit us, precisely why we must restrain new executive branch agencies and dedicated but petty regional committees.

Favoring markets is positive, favoring investment is better. And my second point, directly helping innovators is best. Too many languish starved for assistance and already stunned under rules. Closed after his 1980 defeat, poor Jimmy Carter erected a half dozen regional Innovation Centers to help bring ideas to fruition. We can use these now and many more. We can increase our support for tangible efforts in labs, workshops, factories and farms; for each other, our private research and personal effort. We can become alert, demand repair of damaging methods, and sponsor innovation as we find it.

I think we should scorn abstraction and rhetoric in favor of activity and novelty, a very different infrastructure to tackle a very different era.

To improve our quality of life and sustain our world, our best policy is to invigorate understanding – that’s a rule worth following – and fuel new teams in every sector until our lattice of change emerges as our future.

Lately I’ve not given my attention to green government except while it steps away from its hideous inertia or offers measurable support.

Warning about the error of government, Thomas Jefferson said it best, “Reason and free inquiry are the effectual agents against error. They are the natural enemies of error and error only.”