A Good Black Swan

“We propose ways of harvesting oil from diatoms, using biochemical engineering and also a new solar panel approach that utilizes genetically modifiable aspects of diatom biology, offering the prospect of “milking” diatoms for sustainable energy by altering them to actively secrete oil products,” the scientists say. “Secretion by and milking of diatoms may provide a way around the puzzle of how to make algae that both grow quickly and have a very high oil content.”

The research sounds right, now only if it can be scaled.
ay, there's the rub: - Hamlet

Click here for more info.

Culture 101 :)

Hemp, the Wonder Weed

Hemp, the non stoning cousin of Cannabis, is pretty amazing stuff. To whit...

"Industrial hemp has many uses, including paper, textiles, biodegradable plastics, construction, health food, and fuel.[1] It is one of the fastest growing biomasses known,[2] and one of the earliest domesticated plants known.[3] It may be environmentally helpful, for example hemp requires fewer pesticides,[4] no herbicides,[5] controls erosion of the topsoil, and produces oxygen. Furthermore, hemp can be used to replace many potentially harmful products, such as tree paper (the processing of which uses chlorine bleach, which results in the waste product polychlorinated dibensodioxins, popularly known as dioxins, which are carcinogenic, and contribute to deforestation), cosmetics, and plastics, most of which are petroleum-based and do not decompose easily. "

To add fuel to the fire, :) here's a blurb from Alternet:

"In terms of sustainability, there are numerous reasons to grow hemp," says Patrick Goggin, a board member on the California Council for Vote Hemp, the nation's leading industrial-hemp advocacy group.

Goggin launches into its environmental benefits: Hemp requires no pesticides; it has deep digging roots that detoxify the soil, making it an ideal rotation crop -- in fact, hemp is so good at bioremediation, or extracting heavy metals from contaminated soil, it's being grown near Chernobyl.

Hemp is also an excellent source of biomass, or renewable, carbon-neutral energy, and its cellulose level, roughly three times that of wood, can be used for paper to avoid cutting down trees, an important line of defense against global warming.

When it comes to hemp, environmental gains are inexorably intertwined with economic ones. The auto industry, hardly synonymous with being green but which has had the research dollars to apply new technology, can vouch for Goggin. For years European car makers have been using hemp-fiber-reinforced composite materials to replace fiberglass and in other components, such as door panels or dashboards. And now their American counterparts have joined in."

"Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt". - (Act I, Scene IV). - Measure for Measure - Shakespeare

Complexity Squared

It appears the Infrastructure! focus on the June 14, 2009 issue of the NY Times Sunday Magazine has struck a nerve with many people in the blog sphere as it covers interesting aspects of the underlying costs and complexities of civilization starting with data overload and ending up with urban renewal and high speed train access in America (???). Regarding the data bit (no pun intended), it's rather obvious the web has changed computing forever.


"Data centers worldwide now consume more energy annually than Sweden. And the amount of energy required is growing, says Jonathan Koomey, a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. From 2000 to 2005, the aggregate electricity use by data centers doubled. The cloud, he calculates, consumes 1 to 2 percent of the world’s electricity.

Much of this is due simply to growth in the number of servers and the Internet itself. A Google search is not without environmental consequence — 0.2 grams of CO2 per search, the company claims — but based on E.P.A. assumptions, an average car trip to the library consumes some 4,500 times the energy of a Google search while a page of newsprint uses some 350 times more energy. Data centers, however, are loaded with inefficiencies, including loss of power as it is distributed through the system. It has historically taken nearly as much wattage to cool the servers as it does to run them. Many servers are simply “comatose.” “Ten to 30 percent of servers are just sitting there doing nothing,” Koomey says. “Somebody in some department had a server doing this unique thing for a while and then stopped using it.” Because of the complexity of the network architecture — in which the role of any one server might not be clear or may have simply been forgotten — turning off a server can create more problems (e.g., service outages) than simply leaving it on."

In comparison, consider mass transit in America or the lack thereof...

"This is a story not about Amtrak but about trains, and the problem with any story about trains in America is that you often find yourself thinking about Amtrak, and you often find yourself thinking about how nice it would be if you weren’t thinking about Amtrak. This is especially true when you’re actually riding on Amtrak, which happened to be the case one morning in March when I boarded the Pacific Surfliner in downtown Los Angeles for a 500-mile trip, mostly up the coast, to Sacramento. Anyone who lives in California can tell you that this is folly: other ways of traveling from Los Angeles to Sacramento are quicker and less frustrating and not much more expensive. You can fly in 90 minutes for around $100. Or you can drive in six hours for less than $50 in gas. For $55, my Amtrak journey was scheduled to take at least 12 hours 25 minutes. With any luck, I would arrive there by 9 p.m. And it was fairly obvious to me that I would need some luck, because my ticket to Sacramento had not bought me a train ride, exactly, but a train-bus-train ride. In San Luis Obispo, I would get off the Surfliner and board an Amtrak bus; in San Jose, I would get off the bus and board a different train to Sacramento. There was little room for error: a slow train and I would miss the bus; a slow bus and I would miss the second train. It’s true I could have taken other trains to Sacramento instead, but these had their own drawbacks. The Coast Starlight, for instance, which runs north along the Pacific Coast from L.A., doesn’t involve any buses, but travel time is an estimated 13 hours 44 minutes. What’s worse, the Starlight, a k a the Starlate, is a train of such legendary unreliability that it is not so much a train as an anti-train. In the past it has been known to run 11 or 12 hours behind schedule and post an on-time percentage in the single digits."

Now that we know Amtrak is a raging success, Remaking Paris explores the enormous difficulties of remaking the 'burbs' into something decent, a task which will cost the French billions and take years to finish.

"One of the first things Sarkozy did after he moved into the Elysée Palace was to convene a meeting of prominent architects and ask them to come up with a new blueprint for Paris. “Of course,” he said, “projects should be realistic, but for me true realism is the kind that consists in being very ambitious.” His job was to clean up the city’s working-class suburbs, and at the same time build a greener Paris, the first city to conform to the environmental goals laid out in the Kyoto treaty.

The results, a year later, may be the beginning of one of the boldest urban planning operations in French history. A formidable list of architects — including Richard Rogers, Jean Nouvel, Djamel Klouche and Roland Castro — put forward proposals that address a range of urban problems: from housing the poor to fixing outdated transportation systems to renewing the immigrant suburbs. Some have suggested practical solutions — new train stations and parks — while others have been more provocative, like Castro, who proposed moving the presidential palace to the outskirts.

The architects will continue to refine their ideas over the next year, so it is unclear what form the final plan will take. And Sarkozy has yet to say how he would pay for such an ambitious undertaking. Whatever their chance of being realized, however, these proposals force us to rethink what it means for Paris to be Paris, and how to fix our faltering cities. At a time when “infrastructure” has become a catchword of politicians around the world, these plans offer a glimpse of what a sustainable, more egalitarian city might look like and the role government might play in shaping one."

After reading all of this, I am forced to ask inconvenient questions like, who will pay for these projects (and others like these) and is this the right way to go? Building high speed train service in CA will cost a cool 33 billion while Obama has proposed 13 billion to do the same for the US as a whole.

• Question, how much does CA get and do they have the funds to pick up the slack, especially when CA is broke, (like the US) and lacks the wherewithal to do anything of consequence.
• Question 2, how many people will use the service and what impact will the emergence of web driven telepresence and immersive tech have on travel itself and...
• Question 3, would CA benefit more by repairing the current service to make it reliable and efficient and charge a nominal fee like $10 to encourage use of same thus saving billions of dollars it doesn't have while reducing pollution and the use of cars on it's overused interstate highways. In fact, wouldn't it be better to rebuild mass transit without resorting to high speed tech because existing tracks will not work and the cost for same, as seen by the NY Times article, is totally out of hand.

It's food for thought.

Another reason for hesitation on believing whether any of this wonderful stuff will happen centers not only on the fact peak oil is alive and well (and no longer providing cheap money to the economy) but also on tech itself because rolling out cheap, efficient and reliable technology able to replace the oil driven systems of today will be am extremely expensive and heart wrenching process at best due to the inherent vagaries of the real world. Read A Telling Statement to see why.

Living within one's means is a good thing, something I intend to learn more about after chancing upon the gem seen below. Looks like another $26.40 will leave my pocketbook in pursuit of reading something truly worthwhile like Leon Kier's The Architecture of Community.

"This book is Mr. Krier''s gift to the coming generations-who, otherwise, have been left saddled by us with little more than extravagant debts in every way you could imagine. They are going to have to inhabit what remains of this planet, along with whatever remains of its resources, when we are gone, and Mr. Krier''s heroic, often lonely labors, have produced this indispensable beacon of principle and methodology to light their way home." (James Howard Kunstler from the book's afterword )

The Mystery of Banking

A must read.

Looking for Mr. Goodbar

This sums up my feelings about Dick Cheney as he runs around trying to find out if he's human.

Be Bold

"Federal internet regulators wants your help coming up with the first ever, national broadband plan — which they must deliver to Congress next February. At stake are billions of dollars in government funds, the nation’s standing in world broadband rankings, the digital divides between rich-and-poor and town-and-country, and perhaps even the future of the U.S. economy.

President Barack Obama has called for the United States to become a leader again in internet access — now that the nation pitifully trails Europe, Japan and Korea in both speed and affordability."

To that end, Wired put together a letter containing some excellent suggestions, the most important of which is... Be Bold.

"For instance, many readers support a model where the internet’s pipes aren’t owned by ISPs anymore. They’d rather multiple companies be able rent the shared lines and compete on service, a model that has worked in Britain. Australia uses a version of that model to build a national fiber and wireless network that will serve all Australia." (This model also applies to Japan and Korea as well.)

"Others argued that cities that want to lay their own broadband should be allowed to do so, and the nation’s incumbent telecoms need to stop fighting them at the ballot box and in court:

“We need to stop giving these companies this freedom to stop or delay buildouts of municipal fiber networks. If I had enough money to fund UTOPIA in Salt Lake, I’d jump on it in a heartbeat but I know that I would be facing at least a 2 or 3 year battle in courts with Qwest and Comcast…. If they’re not going to take us on the path to true broadband access then these companies should step aside!”

Last but not least, the article points the way for us to make comments of our own by clicking here.

Who knows, perhaps the government might actually get this right with a little help from people like you and me because after all, the nation's future depends on it. :)

A Billion & Counting

For forty years, computer scientist's have longed for reliable memory able to stand the test of time. Looks like they may have it if this tiny tech scales to real world proportions.

"When it comes to data storage, density and durability have always moved in opposite directions - the greater the density the shorter the durability. For example, information carved in stone is not dense but can last thousands of years, whereas today’s silicon memory chips can hold their information for only a few decades. Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have smashed this tradition with a new memory storage medium that can pack thousands of times more data into one square inch of space than conventional chips and preserve this data for more than a billion years!"

Rust never sleeps. - Neil Young

Neither does tech - RM

Exihibit A on why the Political System is Broken

"As the health insurance industry and its defenders in Congress lay out their case against permitting a public option in a reform bill, perhaps their most curious argument is that some 119 million Americans are ready to dump their private plans and jump to something more like Medicare – and that’s why the choice can’t be permitted.

In other words, the industry and its backers are acknowledging that more than one-third of the American people are so dissatisfied with their private health insurance that they trust the U.S. government to give them a fairer shake on health care. The industry says its allies in Congress must prevent that.

The peculiar argument that 119 million Americans must be denied the public option that they prefer has been made most notably by Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which is one of two panels that has jurisdiction over the health insurance bill.

“As many as 119 million Americans would shift from private coverage to the government plan,” Grassley wrote in a column for Politico.com. That migration, Grassley said, would “put America on the path toward a completely government-run health care system. … Eventually, the government plan would overtake the entire market.”

Grassley’s logic is that so many Americans would prefer a government-run plan that the private health insurance industry would collapse or become a shadow of its current self. That, in turn, would lead even more Americans entering the government plan, making private insurance even less viable.

Rarely has an argument more dramatically highlighted the philosophical question of whether in a democracy, the government should represent the people’s interests or an industry’s."

To see another BRT take on this issue, click here.

" The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. " - I. F. Stone


Addendum: The press SP blackout continues unabated as seen in Media Channel's article titled. Media Quarantine of Single Payer Continues.

Oh, I forgot, Congressional Health Care is single payer. Seems what's good for the goose is not for the gander.

Addendum II: People are starting to speak up as Single Payer gathers steam. It appears the commercial approach to this governmental problem is starting to lose steam in spite of Obama's support. One can only hope.

Addendum III: "Less than a month after 13 single-payer advocates were arrested protesting the exclusion of single payer, it is at the table in both Houses, making progress while the multi-payer pro-insurance reform is faltering."

Zeitgeist may be in play here, don't you think? :)

A Telling Statement

Industry Fears Americans May Quit New Car Habit

When reading this NY Times article, I was struck at the arrogance and stupidity of car manufacturers designing cars to self destruct in order for us to buy new ones. Year after year, the gripes would pile on GM, Chrysler and Ford regarding equipment that simply did not last, where craftsmanship took a back seat to marketing while easy credit based on oil would enable people, in George Carlin's words, to buy crap they don't need with money they don't have.

Welcome to the new broke America where innovation has taken, hopefully, a temporary vacation while stupidity, passivity and greed reigned supreme using god as the mantra to put forth empty platitudes extolling America's so called manifest destiny onto a world changing faster then thought possible thanks to tech and the web, engines of creation developed by a tiny segment of the population who ignore the ongoing BS mouthed off by a significant segment of the willfully ignorant who call themselves Americans.

In reading about the false recovery mavens vs. the doom and gloom guys, (I lean toward the latter with reservations...) one sees a lack of nuance and common sense in trying to understand just what the hell is going on. For starters, here's a partial list of conditions and facts you rarely see in network news.

1. Black swans are everywhere as quantum theory and chaos dictate unexpected events of tremendous impact rule. Rogue waves are a perfect example of this as is the blowback caused by the elimination of the Glass Stegall act courtesy of Bob Rubin and Phil Gramm.
2. Stuff that works in the lab doesn't always equate to success in the real world. (read No. 1.) as gotchas abound in the chaotic reality in which we inhabit. Just take solar energy where it's a researcher's paradise and a manufacturer's nightmare due to the fact new breakthroughs are being discovered on a daily basis thus inadvertently delaying the manufacturing of really powerful solar energy hardware because nothing is worse then spending millions on a tech made obsolete even before the first product reaches the marketplace. Note: Once research finally centers on a set of cost effective, highly efficient and easily manufactured materials able to be configured in many different ways, solar will eventually become the biggest industry in the world, an impact that will, in part, free us from the tyranny of oil and coal. Time frame, 5-10 years.
   
3. The financial system is broken. Factoid 1. We pay interest whenever we burrow our money from the Fed and the IRS is the agent collecting said interest. Factoid 2. The Fed cannot be audited. Factoid 3. The Fed is a private cartel protected by government. Factoid 4. The Treasury is on the hook for 12.8 trillion dollars with the majority of funds going to WS banks. Factoid 5. Derivatives created by the 5 biggest Wall Street Banks tally over 180 trillion dollars while the world's GNP is 56 trillion. (BRT has this data, just search and ye will find. :))
   
4. The political system is broken. Politicians take orders from lobbyists and corporations as these parties fund their endless reelection campaigns, thus obtaining loyalty at public expense as seen by Congress ignoring the will of the people regarding bank bailouts and single payer health care.
   
5. This economic crisis is NOT the same as in 1929 because in 1929, the US had money, oil and the best mass transit system in the world. (The depression was caused by the Fed tightening up the money supply, thus eliminating credit because without burrowing, there is no money.)
   
6. Tech advances at double exponential rates but rolling it out into the real world at large enough scales does not (See no 2.)
7. The inherent complexity of modern civilization is exceedingly fragile. i.e., the action of one errant car can totally stop traffic on any interstate highway at any point in time.
8. Tech is far from perfect because we build it. Any questions?
   
9. Global warming is the game changer writ large.
10. The disconnect between tech, finance and politics is accelerating with no end in sight.
11. Reality is a communicative/transaction process e.g. The photon, (light) carrier of the electromagnetic force, impacts every aspect of our existence. Without carrier particles such as the photon (gravitons/gravity, gluons/strong force, W & Z particles/weak force) the universe, and the information contained within it, would cease to exist.
    
12. The singularity is near if we have enough energy and capital to make it happen, something many techies conveniently ignore while expounding on this exciting (and somewhat disquieting) prospect.
    
13. Religion & government, it's all about control because it's much easier to comply and accept then to resist and question.
14. Peak oil is here, something we must deal with if we are to survive as a viable species.
15. One cannot predict the future due to the law of initial conditions, quantum theory and chaos.
16. Governments lie - IF Stone
17. We can make a difference if we have the courage and vision to do so.
18. Education is the key to surviving in the connected and chaotic world of the 21st century.
19. Creativity resides in everyone. The trick is finding where it resides and encouraging people to express it.
20. Language and environment define how we view reality.
    
21. The most intense advancement in tech happens in time of war.
22. The military/industrial/congressional complex, in conjunction with the banks, are bankrupting the country. Just look at the budget and bailouts to see why.
23. The status quo is no longer acceptable if this country is to survive. It's time to take our country back before it's too late.
24. The next 30 years will be difficult at best because fundamental change is a bitch to deal with. Just ask the Romans (and many others) about this fact as nothing is too big to fail.
    

First Contact, the best Star Trek flick made prior to the 2009 edition, shows the world of 2063 to be a place where sustainability remains problematic while tech marches on as seen by Dr. Zefram Cochrane's development of warp drive. It's frontier time in the dawn of a new age where optimism, tempered by practicality, points the way to a future that can benefit us all.

Being stupid and consuming no longer works, being intelligent and resourceful does, always.

Friendship
The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money. - Mark Twain