No Threat to Mankind

I was going to write about my lack of concern over the firing up of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, the world's largest particle physics laboratory but a press release by CERN issued on Sept 5, 08 sums it up quite well. From what I understand CERN is going to accelerate particles in a 27 kilometer loop of super-cooled magnets, smacking them together and “popping” into existence really heavy particles that we have never seen and probably never will. The heavy particle called Higgs bosun or God particle won’t stick around long enough to be photographed or sign autographs so how will we know that the LHC worked? By the evidence left behind. Kind of like the mess in the Family room. No one did it or saw it happen but it’s there all the same. Some groups are concerned that this particle smacking will cause the end of the world or worse, the universe. I’m with Steven Hawking and those who don’t think this will happen. “Professor Hawking is not convinced that the so-called “God particle”, which theory suggests gives matter its mass, actually exists, and in 2000 he backed his judgement by making a $100 (£50) wager with Professor Kane, who thinks it will soon be found.” Considering that all we have done on and to the planet hasn’t ended it yet, I’m not going to dig out my “The End Is Near” sign over spinning some miniscule bits around and whacking them together. But in case I’m wrong “So long, and Thanks for All the Fish”.

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Shot in the Foot Again

Who would have thought that at this early stage of the game or late stage if you are an environmentalist, that we would have too much wind power? That’s right. According to an article in the International Herald Tribune by Matthew L. Wald, nearly 200 windmills in New York have been forced to shut down due to congestion in the power transmission lines. This lack of infrastructure sounds a lot like the North American oil supply problem. In recent U.S. political campaigning one presidential hopeful suggests that his opponent’s stand against offshore drilling would be damaging to the U.S. economy. This is contrary to the opinion of many experts who say that the bottleneck is not the supply of oil but the capacity to refine the stuff. There doesn’t seem to be any incentive to build new refineries for an energy source that is going the way of the endangered species that helped create it, albeit kicking and screaming all the way. So we have two energy sources with inadequate infrastructure. Gas may be on the way out but the need for electricity is not going to go away in the foreseeable future so why not just start the process of building the estimated $60 billion cross-country backbone needed for the increased energy production from solar and wind powered sources? Fear and Greed would be my guess. Getting any sort of an agreement between the 500 groups that own the power lines and the multiple levels of government may call for federal intervention, something the U.S. Energy Department is considering. Augmenting the electrical power grid will take years and billions of dollars. It will happen because it has to happen. During that time coal fired power plants will be built (there’s always room for coal) and will contribute to the already too high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. Wind farms have to be built where there is wind and it seems that most of the wind is in out of the way places. It makes me wonder what the cost of running transmission lines is compared to building new coal fired plants. Here’s a thought. If coal fired plants pollute the environment and wind farms are environmentally clean, why not scale back the electrical output of the coal burning utilities to make room on the existing transmission lines for the power from the wind farms. The result will be the same amount of energy only cleaner. Using green energy will bring down the price of producing it (economies of scale) and might just help save the planet. Reference: International Herald Tribune, Matthew L. Wald Published: August 27, 2008

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Nickel and Dime Time

The average person views over 3,500 bits of advertising per day whether they like it or not. Imagine paying for each of them. My (former)cellular provider wants to change our contract and charge me $0.15 per unwanted incoming text message. If it is spam, I can let them know and they won’t charge me. Letting them know will take some of my time, more than 15 cents worth. But wait a minute, if I call to report each individual unwanted text message, that will require some time and effort to respond to each of my calls. Even if the procedure is to notify them via email, it will still cost them time and money to process. If everyone reports every text message, the unwanted ones of course, it could create a massive workload for the cellular providers. That’s just my 15 cents worth.

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Solar Energy for Peace

If halting climate change isn’t reason enough to push for the advancement and adoption of solar and wind power over nuclear and carbon producing processes, how about peace? Solar energy is limitless, at least in the foreseeable future; say 5 or 6 billion years. That’s a lot longer than the projection for oil reserves for the entire planet by, oh, about 5 or 6 billion years. And wind power. As long as there is a sun, there will be wind. Develop and distribute solar capabilities to all countries. Sounds counter-intuitive giving technology away but due to economies of scale, mass production of solar capturing devices would lower the component costs. Thus, giving it away to countries that had fewer resources would cost less. If all countries had sufficient solar energy there would be no need to continue developing nuclear based power sources or coal and bio-fuel for that matter. How does this pave the way for peace? Recently, Iran test fired missiles. This caused political tension and oil prices to rise around the world. The missiles by themselves are not the main cause for concern; it is the uranium enrichment process Iran says it is pursuing for energy production that has got everyone’s attention. If all countries had an adequate supply of reasonably priced solar energy, they would not need to buy large quantities of oil from potentially aggressive countries and thereby fund military “defense” systems in those countries. Less oil, more peace. The loss of economic value caused by the disuse of oil as a power source would be offset by the growing solar economy. Heat and light for your home, industry and solar powered transportation. If you wonder about the feasibility of solar energy, check out Germany. Germany is leading the way and does not seem to be suffering for it. What about the disused oil refineries? Turn them into museums as reminders of how not to treat our only planet.

GAIA THE LIVING PLANET Earth Design iPhone case

GAIA THE LIVING PLANET Earth Design by dequilla

Word

I was talking to my daughter in Germany. She is there, I’m not. We were using MSN and I remarked it was as if she were downstairs. Instant messaging is really fast, even though there is a six hour time difference between here and there. But this is not about the speed of the Internet. It is about language. I’ve always thought that it would be handy if there was a universal language. It would be really, really handy if that language were English as that is the only one I’ve been able to master (well I’m working on it). Millions may disagree but it’s my blog, get your own. From what I understand European children have the advantage of being forced to learn more than one language. This is handy as those countries are cheek-by-jowl with a lot of foreign countries that speak something else. I am jealous. When I went to school, more than a few years ago, the educational system arranged that we would get 15 minutes of French. Canadian French. The classes were forty minutes long but we got 15 minutes whether we wanted it or not. I’m sure the teachers were more than competent ‘tho I wonder who wrote the curriculum. Through grades 6 to 12, to the best of my knowledge, few of my unilingual peers rose to the aggrandized state of truly bilingual. For those who did, felicitations. Myself, I can tell you there is an autobus dans la rue, ask for a beer and ask where the washroom is. Two of these have stood me in good stead. The reason for language is to communicate. To everyone. Otherwise, have a code. Back in the old days, Esperanto, a language, was developed in 1887 by Ludwik Zamenhof with the specific intent of creating an international second language. There are an estimated 2 million speakers of Esperanto. There are nearly 7 billion people on earth. Language itself, let alone second languages may be doomed to fail. As early as 1965, The Who said “And don’t try to dig what we all s-s-say”. Prophecy or warning. Need proof of the demise of language? Check out your kids on Messenger or texting on their mobile. Leetspeak short for elite speak as defined by Mopo.ca Leet (most commonly 1337 but often also leetspeak, leetspeek, or l33t) from the phonetic form of the word "elite", is a cipher, or novel form of English spelling. It is characterized by the use of non-alphabetic characters to stand for letters bearing a superficial resemblance, and by a number of spelling changes such as the substitution of "z" for final "s" and "x" for "(c)ks". Leetspeak is traditionally used on the Internet and other online communities, such as bulletin board systems. Leetspeak is commonly used by hackers, crackers, script kiddies, and gamers. (English teachers everywhere are turning in their graves) (well, the dead ones anyway). Imagine this type of communication during the Cold War, think Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb But who can blame the younger generations for trying to eliminate extraneous parts of language such as vowels and consonents. Try writing anything of any length on a crackberry. So while today’s languages may join the ranks of Latin and Greek, we will still be able to communicate on some level. So for now I will bid you adieu or say caio which is short for bye.

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The Easy Life...Maybe

Work from home. Earn $$$ while sitting on the beach. 

Sounds great doesn’t it. 
Set your own hours. No boss and no commuting (with the price of gas who could blame you?). 
Can you make money on the internet? Obviously some people can but can the average Joe or Jane? It’s not as easy as it sounds at least I haven’t found it so. 
I have made money on the web, coffee money as I call it. Certainly not what anyone would call an “income”. Yet.
I think the clues why may be in the ad lines. 
WORK FROM HOME. “I’m trying to avoid work and you’re telling me I’ve got to WORK”. EARN while sitting on the BEACH. “If I’ve got to EARN, that’s starting to sound like WORK”. 
I guess there is no getting around it. Anyone who thinks that the idea of generating either a full or part-time income, by working just a few hours a week from home, has sprung from the internet age must be fairly young or has been living under a rock (on the beach?). 

I remember reading classified ads in the back of Popular Mechanics, Popular Science and others enticing readers to send anywhere from one to five dollars and a SASE (self addressed stamped envelope) for recipes (hundreds of ways to prepare hamburger), plans (build your own laser) and information (secrets of the universe).

I’ve often thought if I had sent for the secrets of the universe they would surely include the hamburger and laser information. 

Oh well, nothing ventured… Anyway, the internet allows this sort of thing to work (there’s that word again) for just about anyone. If you can write (preferably one of the major languages), follow instructions and have a few hundred dollars, you can potentially reach The World. “A few hundred dollars?” “I thought this was going to be cheap”. 
It can be, but anyone who is not a programmer or who doesn’t have a lot of experience with websites might do better with a service that does the technical side of things for you. Not the work, mind you. You still have to work. A service can make it easier for everyone, geek or not, to compete.

Free or Nearly.

My blog on Google http://damccaskilland.blogspot.com/ is free.
My Facebook profile is free.
My Zazzle account is free.
I also had a website that cost me about $3.00 a month. I do have over ten years experience in Information Systems so I did things the hard way. Besides, back then the internet was a do it yourself kind of place.
My last job required long hours and included being on-call all the time. 
This turned me into a REST from home kind of person as opposed to a Work from home one. 
Now that I have more spare time I’m working on the EARN while on the beach or while sleeping. Just don’t sleep on the beach. It's easy to get burned there too. 
To be continued…

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Success by damccaskill

Balance

I don’t feel that forces beyond my control conspire against me. 
I do however feel that there is a force that tries to discourage people from doing good deeds. 
Don’t know why but it seems for each positive there is a negative. 
For example, in an effort to save the world, or at least lessen my impact on it, I started to drive slower for better fuel economy and drive less often when I can. I don’t use as much fuel so the price of gas went up. 
I don’t feel personally responsible but to test this theory maybe I should drive more and faster. If gas prices go down, should I buy a big SUV with a V8?
There is no recycling out where I live so I drive my recycling in to town but even returning my beer bottles in doesn’t pay for a gallon of gas. 
I saw a commercial with Dr. David Suzuki telling people that clothes lines were eco friendly. I thought putting up a clothes line would be a good idea. Anyway my wife told me to put one up. 
That was three days ago. It hasn’t stopped raining since. Doesn’t seem fair does it?
The garden is growing like crazy but the grass is too wet to cut. That’s a shame. :)

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