The stink of mortality
Today Deron took me to the dump, where he and I heaved out a Jeepful of my late mother’s detritus as a thousand gulls swirled about us.
This is Fermi 2
Sounds like a Muppet name, doesn’t it?
Last week I drove to Michigan on business south of Detroit and saw these cooling towers in the near distance. I’ve seen them from I-75 before, but they always seemed so far off the highway. I was mesmerized, couldn’t get close enough. I asked the nice man at the gate if I could drive closer to take pictures and he said, “you can drive to those pylons up ahead and make a u-turn and get on outta here.” He didn’t say it, but “little Missy” was implied by his tone of voice.
The first Fermi reactor (Fermi 1) suffered a partial meltdown and a release of radiation in 1966 during a test run. Engineers were able to intervene and contain the radiation, but the accident caused quite a scare and even prompted some officials to initially consider evacuating portions of southeastern Michigan, including the city of Detroit. Fermi 1 finally began operating again in 1970, but shut down for good in 1972.
But everything’s okay now!
we were just gaga over it
NASA finds life beneath an antarctic ice-shelf.
Six hundred feet below the ice where no light shines, scientists had figured nothing much more than a few microbes could exist.
That’s why a NASA team was surprised when they lowered a video camera to get the first long look at the underbelly of an ice sheet in Antarctica. A curious shrimp-like creature came swimming by and then parked itself on the camera’s cable. Scientists also pulled up a tentacle they believe came from a foot-long jellyfish.
I Should Kick Myself
The entry into the garage. We had new siding put on the house three…four? years ago. At the time, they also put in new garage doors with openers, new windows in the media room (a 10′x25′ room on the south side of the house). Why I didn’t include this door in the deal is a mystery to me. I remember thinking, “Ooo, this is too much money.” But, honestly, what would another three or four hundred dollars have done to the loan, lien on the house over the course of fifteen years?
Nevermind the decaying concrete ruined by ten years of throwing “snow-melt” on top of it, that now needs to be ripped out and replaced. “All in good time,” I keep thinking. “All in good time.” And then there’s the landscaping. Oh, fuck it. The shoemaker’s kids go without shoes.
dear clusterflock
Is it only the internal compass that points true north?
Message from Midway Atoll
Taken on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking. To see more of the series click the photo or follow this link.
Faking It
Among the many trends covered by the NYT Freakonomics blog, this is certainly one of their most interesting:
We are agnostics living deep in the heart of Texas and our family fakes Christianity for social reasons. It’s not so much for the sake of my husband or myself but for our young children. We found by experience that if we were truthful about not being regular church attenders, the play dates suddenly ended. Thus started the faking of the religious funk.
Do our resident Texans attest?
Weekly Picture 177
Shrub with Snow, Office Max, Austin, TX 2.23.2010
in a nutshell
Gov. Rick Perry and other top Texas officials on Tuesday announced a legal challenge to the federal government’s finding that greenhouse gases are dangerous to people, claiming the ruling was based on flawed science.
the rare earth crisis of 2009
China is the only country capable at the moment of mining and processing the rare earth elements used in dozens of emerging technologies. With China’s increase in consumption, however, manufacturers around the world are concerned China may limit or halt the export of such materials.
Europium: This extremely rare but critical chemical makes the red color for television monitors and energy-efficient LED light bulbs. China is the only country today that produces europium, dysprosium and terbium, which are necessary for either boosting the efficient operating temperature of magnets or for producing red in color displays. In December, USGS scientists discovered Alaskan deposits of europium, but even the few U.S. companies that mine rare earth elements must send the resources to China for processing.
Lanthanum: A primary component of the nickel-metal hydride battery in Toyota’s popular hybrid car, Prius. The Prius also incorporates neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium. Lifton estimates that Toyota may use as much as 7,500 tons of lanthanum and 1,000 tons of neodymium per year to build its Prius cars. That dependence on rare earth elements has prompted the company to search for alternative sources outside China.
Neodymium: This represents a main component of the permanent magnets at the heart of the most efficient wind turbines. China’s own wind production efforts could consume all the available neodymium production and leave nothing for the rest of the world’s booming wind industry, Lifton notes in a recent report titled “The Rare Earth Crisis of 2009.” Neodymium is also used in the glass of incandescent light bulbs produced by General Electric, which has unsurprisingly invested in both Chinese and alternative sources of rare earth elements.
steps
More snow expected overnight. It is February in Pittsburgh, after all.
this unique 18-minute genre has its own requirements
From a Wired article on how to ace a TED Talk:
“I’m surprised to see that half the people here know my career in some detail and the other half don’t know who I am,” he says.
Science is fine, but not when it messes with our illusions.
If she had included solar power and African child warriors, it would have been so perfect a TED talk that there would have been no need for others.
Wolfram wraps his talk by saying that when it comes to trying to boil down the universe to a simple algorithm, “it’s almost embarrassing not to at least try.”
“Just because someone has an ego,” he says, citing a writer whose name I can’t read from my scribbled notes, “doesn’t mean he’s wrong.”
the newly discovered Sundaland clouded leopard
“Despite our powerful spot lights and the roar of our vehicle’s engine, it walked around our vehicle calmly,” he told AFP.
Largely why I was hated in high school
Phil once asked somthing like “is there a photo of yourself you wouldn’t show someone?” This would be it, if I were showing it. The dude on the left was my neighbor to the north of our house in the background. We shared a driveway.
reg’lar day
Lookin’ out my back door.
It’s kind of wimpy for this time of year, as we had a big thaw a few days back.
quote out of context
It is dark outside … we can only assume the sun has been destroyed.
snow on branches
From Friday evening through Saturday afternoon, we had steady, heavy, snowfall in Pittsburgh. By the time it stopped, 21 inches had fallen. (Another storm is expected tomorrow, with 6 – 10 inches more.) Our street is still unplowed, buses are infrequent and delayed, and we are walking a lot. Plenty of time to look up, look around, enjoy the changed landscape.
If Not You, Who Can We Believe In?
A seemingly bewildered contestant pauses during the Tough Guy Challenge 2010 obstacle course in Wolverhampton, England. The course, which includes running through fire, swamps, mud, barbed wire, etc., was started by a fellow named Mr. Mouse.
Baltic
The thick-furred male dog was found adrift Monday 15 miles (24 kilometers) out in the Baltic Sea by the crew of the Baltica, a Polish ship of ocean scientists carrying out research.
“It was really a tough struggle. It kept slipping into the water and crawling back on top of the ice. At one point it vanished underwater, under the ship and we thought it was the end, but it emerged again and crawled on an ice sheet,” Drgas said.
At that point, the crew lowered a pontoon down to the water and a crew member managed to grab the dog by the scruff of his neck and pull him to safety.
Too weak to shake off the frigid water, Baltic was dried and wrapped in blankets. After he warmed up, he was massaged, fed and soon got on his feet to seek company, Drgas said.
It’s lonely in the modern world.
Even in your company, I feel so alone. (Dwell, September 2009.)
Unhappy Hipsters. (Thanks, Kate.)
Solar Impulse
Bertrand Piccard, a Swiss pilot, will fly his solar powered airplane around the world.
“We believe that if an airplane can fly around the world with no fuel, nobody can say after that it’s impossible to do it for cars, for heating systems, for air-conditioning, for computers and so on,” he said.
Trexa, build your own electric vehicle
Built with carbon steel tubing, aluminum and fiber-reinforced thermoplastics, the modular Trexa platform can contain enough lithium iron phosphate battery modules to carry you 105 miles with dual motors capable of reaching 60 miles per hour in eight seconds. Top speed is a claimed 100 mph. It has impact-absorbing front, rear and side safety structures to help protect you whether you have it outfitted as a city commuter or have it adorned for the weekend with a pickup truck app. There is a 6 kW charger built-in that allows it to go from flat to full in four hours but they also allow access to the main power bus so you could plug into a more powerful off-board rapid charger or, if you want to get fancy, attach a range-extender.
environmental therapy
Mr. Fleming, who says he became committed to Ms. Cobb “before her high-priestess phase,” describes their conflicts as good-natured — mostly.
quote out of context
Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French … and they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.’ True story. So the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal.’
quote out of context
I don’t know what to do. They just make these things up.