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Interesting developments on carbon emissions
It would seem that there has been some progress in developing an actually useful way of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Essentially it’s a giant vacuum that sucks the CO2 out of the air. It gets around several problems, most notably geography (the devices can be anywhere). While there is energy expended in the proccess, the main guy has the interesting observation
The real issue, says Lackner, is not the energy consumed but the CO2 emitted. He estimates that for every ton of CO2 he captures, he’ll generate another 0.4 ton. But because this process will take place at a plant, where emissions are concentrated relative to air, it will be easily captured.
Pair it up with nuclear power and you’ve got an even bigger net decrease.
One item not mentioned in the article is that it is possible to start this on a small scale without any public/government consensus on the topic. Any meaningful consensus, particularly an international one would most likely be ineffective, slow, corrupt in implementation and captured by special interests from the start.
The above remedy is able to be done by quite a few people with little public input and delay. The Sierra Club, Richard Branson, Wal-Mart, whoever, could just set them up as much as they wanted. It doesn’t get around the free-rider problem, but it does allow private virtue to be accomplished.
For the record, I’m still a skeptic on global warming, but the technology is fascinating.
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The Great Siberian Ice March
Somehow I wound up on this page on WikiPedia and found it fascinating. During the Russian Civil War in the late teen and early 20s, the Red Army was chasing the White Army across Siberia, specifically Lake Baikal had to escape across the frozen lake in sub-zero temperatures.
the Arctic winds that blow unobstructed across the lake froze many in the army and their families to death. The bodies remained frozen on the lake in a kind of tableau throughout the winter of 1919 until the arrival of summer, when the frozen figures and all their possessions disappeared in 8,000 feet of water.
Does anyone know of a good history of the Russian Civil War? I don’t know of any notable works on the topic.
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The weird far right makes an appearance
We haven’t seen these people since the last administration
Six arrested in ‘militia’ weapons raids; nearby school shut
Federal and state agents arrested six men and seized an arsenal of homemade hand grenades and firearms in raids Thursday, including one that forced the shutdown of a school.The men, members of the self-styled “Alabama Free Militia,” had no apparent plans to use the weapons, but the leader was described as a federal fugitive, federal authorities said.
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Snipers and robot armies
After reading these two articles (here and here) about new forms of sniper scopes, I have to wonder, why aren’t robot armies in the field right now? Granted, all of the shooting must somehow involve a human, but I would imagine that remote operator could be anywhere. We’ve had unmanned aerial vehicles for years now, and those fly, which would seem to be much more complicated and expensive.
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My funniest line from last night
Was when I said “I’ve seen the greatest minds of my generation destroyed by Dave Mathews”, which got a good laugh from my fellow acoustic purists who were going over new material at the open mic last night.
Which I won by the way. I could just barely hear myself in the monitors, but evidently is sounded good in the crowd. I got my guitar showpiece, Bonaparte’s Retreat (in Drop D tuning) mostly right, which is a rare thing.
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Random links
- Remove the web developer and the web gets developed
- Term of the day “Fever Swamp – A political website or mindset that is prone to wild accusations and is especially susceptible to conspiracy theories.”
- An excellent post on conspiracy theories
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The most illuminating presentation I’ve seen in years
Via Zen Pundit, it’s Col Patrick Lang’s Lecture on Islam. Purely informative, insightful, historical, well presented, and doesn’t run afoul of the Electric Shaver of Peace fallacy. I recommend it to everyone. It’s about 90 minutes worth of video, I just let it play while I worked on other stuff.
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The funniest thing I’ve read today
From this Popular Mechanics article on flying cars
Recently, NASA scientists discovered that most people love to play video games but hate to die in fiery airplane crashes
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Cool article in Popular Mechanics
About the Army’s Land Warrior System. It’s very cool.
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Loner into the waste did go…
On Friday I happened to be driving through Kirkwood and happened by the old, abandoned Pullman Company Yards. I happened to have my camera with me, so I did some exploring.The Atlanta Preservation Center describes it as
The Pratt Engineering Company purchased this property adjacent to the rail line in 1900 in what was once the City of Kirkwood. In the 1920’s, the Pullman Company bought and expanded the industrial complex for its southeast repair facility. Many of the industrial buildings, characterized by brick clad and riveted iron skeleton construction built by Pratt Engineering and the brick clad reinforced concrete buildings built by the Pullman Company remain on the site.
Anyway, check out the photo gallery.
