[Vo]: Detroit Sees the Light
And it's electric! http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060809/AUTO03/608090317/1149 http://tinyurl.com/o88tu
[Vo]: Sarfattisms
This has got to be one of the best: What is mind? Mind is a macro-quantum coherent ODLRO (off diagonal long-range order) field in the brain/body microtubule caged electron protein dimers (S. Hameroff) protected against decoherence by More is different Goldstone phase rigidity. :-) Terry
[Vo]: New Segway Products
One is the Robotic Mobility Platform: http://www.segway.com/products/rmp/ A friend told me about this several months ago (before it was announced). This person was writing systems integration software for military robots. One comment was, imagine a Segway with a chain gun rolling into a batch of bad guys and spinning wheels in opposite directions while firing. Hopefully, the next battlefield will have only bad guy blood spilled on it. Terry
[Vo]: RIP Detroit - Formally: Detroit Sees the Light
From Terry Blanton And it's electric! http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060809/AUTO03/608090317/1149 http://tinyurl.com/o88tu This reminds me of when I purchased my first home computer back around 1978. I was fresh out of college and had just landed my first real full-paying job. I was going to be a reasonably high-paid computer programmer for the state of Wisconsin. With a steady source of income guaranteed I went to my bank and took out my first loan. With a fist full of loaned dollars in my hand I bought Radio Shack's first incarnation of the TRS-80, or Trash-80 as besmirched by the other competitor in the market. My TRS-80 came with one floppy drive (80k storage) and a whopping 4k of RAM. I think its clock speed was hovering somewhere around 1 - 2 MhZ. I think I could play Solitaire on the flickering 14-inch black and white monitor. Those were the days when the BASIC programming language actually looked like BASIC with each turgid line of code prefixed with numbers. My TRS-80 cost me approximately $2,400 in 1978 dollars. I could have bought a decent used car with that amount of cash. Tells ! you where my priorities were back in those ancient days! Today we have the sexy Tesla all-electric Roadster, delivering the equivalent of 135 miles per gallon with a 250 mile range per charge. Without a doubt the snappy sports red color puts my 1978 all-plastic gray TRS-80 chassis to shame. The suggested retail price for the sexy Tesla model is around 85 - 110 grand, just a tad above what I can presently afford. Well, maybe if I re-mortgaged the house. Meanwhile, according to the article that Terry supplied us with, there are other contenders in the market, like the Xebra, a city car made by the company Zap, a 3 wheeler that goes as fast as 40 mph and can go as far as 40 miles per charge. The cost: A much more reasonable $8,900. There are improvements on the drawing boards soon to be revealed. Even Zebra's humble statistics could easily drive me to work, to the grocery store, to dental appointments, as well as my spouse and I to the theatre. We could even afford to go out to a moderately priced restaurant on a weekend - because we aren't spending all of our discretionary entertainment budget trying to keep the gas tank filled. One can clearly see an equivalent innovative technological trend beginning to evolve in innovative new electric car designs, the equivalent of what we previously witnessed in the PC industry over the past several decades. It really did take decades for the home (personal) computer to evolve into the micro super computers we now have sitting on our desks these days. It seems to me that we are witnessing the same scenario in the beginning stages of unfolding in the auto industry as well. It will happen, I have no doubt. A footnote. There is no guarantee that Detroit will be the primary beneficiary and main manufacturer of all-electric cars, the future affordable car manufactured for the common man woman who must survive on modest fixed salaries and wages day-in and day-out. Silicon Valley, with all its formidable brainpower in electronics, may actually turn out to be the true winner in the early 21st century space race. RIP Detroit. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.Zazzle.com/orionworks
[Vo]: Printing Solar Cells
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/280625_solarcell10.html Solar cells change electricity distribution By DAVE FREEMAN AND JIM HARDING GUEST COLUMNISTS In separate announcements over the past few months, researchers at the University of Johannesburg and at Nanosolar, a private company in Palo Alto, have announced major breakthroughs in reducing the cost of solar electric cells. While trade journals are abuzz with the news, analysis of the potential implications has been sparse. We approach this news as current and former public electric utility executives, sympathetic with consumer and environmental concerns. South Africa and California technologies rely on the same alloy -- called CIGS (for copper-indium-gallium-selenide) -- deposited in an extremely thin layer on a flexible surface. Both companies claim that the technology reduces solar cell production costs by a factor of 4-5. That would bring the cost to or below that of delivered electricity in a large fraction of the world. The California team is backed by a powerful team of private investors, including Google's two founders and the insurance giant Swiss Re, among others. It has announced plans to build a $100 million production facility in the San Francisco Bay area that is slated to be operational at 215 megawatts next year, and soon thereafter capable of producing 430 megawatts of cells annually. What makes this particular news stand out? Cost, scale and financial strength. The cost of the facility is about one-tenth that of recently completed silicon cell facilities. Second, Nanosolar is scaling up rapidly from pilot production to 430 megawatts, using a technology it equates to printing newspapers. That implies both technical success and development of a highly automated production process that captures important economies of scale. No one builds that sort of industrial production facility in the Bay Area -- with expensive labor, real estate and electricity costs -- without confidence. Similar facilities can be built elsewhere. Half a dozen competitors also are working along the same lines, led by private firms Miasole and Daystar, in Sunnyvale, Calif., and New York. But this is really not about who wins in the end. We all do. Thin solar films can be used in building materials, including roofing materials and glass, and built into mortgages, reducing their cost even further. Inexpensive solar electric cells are, fundamentally, a disruptive technology, even in Seattle, with below-average electric rates and many cloudy days. Much like cellular phones have changed the way people communicate, cheap solar cells change the way we produce and distribute electric energy. The race is on. The announcements are good news for consumers worried about high energy prices and dependence on the Middle East, utility executives worried about the long-term viability of their next investment in central station power plants, transmission, or distribution, and for all of us who worry about climate change. It is also good news for the developing world, where electricity generally is more expensive, mostly because electrification requires long-distance transmission and serves small or irregular loads. Inexpensive solar cells are an ideal solution. Meanwhile, the prospect of this technology creates a conundrum for the electric utility industry and Wall Street. Can -- or should -- any utility, or investor, count on the long-term viability of a coal, nuclear or gas investment? The answer is no. In about a year, we'll see how well those technologies work. The question is whether federal energy policy can change fast enough to join what appears to be a revolution. end Thanks Sergey Larry! Terry
[Vo]: Whither the Polysulphide Battery?
I noticed that Stuart Licht's Polysulphide battery patent will expire in another year, relative to the '87 filing date. ( 4828942) It claims to be a cheap, efficient flow cell unit with 3 times the storage capacity of lead/metal systems. I can't find any evidence that it was ever built. I wonder what happened to it? I have tried to e-mail him with no reply.
Re: [Vo]: Printing Solar Cells
On 8/11/06, Terry Blanton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In separate announcements over the past few months, researchers at the University of Johannesburg and at Nanosolar, a private company in Palo Alto, have announced major breakthroughs in reducing the cost of solar electric cells. While trade journals are abuzz with the news, analysis of the potential implications has been sparse. Their products: http://nanosolar.com/products.htm Terry
Re: [Vo]: New Segway Products
On 8/11/06, Jed Rothwell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Can this gadget tell who is bad, and who is innocent? Just shoots the ones in black hats. A problem for the Israelis in Lebanon, innit? The software package was quite interesting. It integrated 30,000 combat elements including UAVs and various ground robotic devices. Another interesting comment was about what the programmer called a land aircraft carrier, a flat bed truck that launched swarms of small aircraft for recon and attack. The wetware coordinators were far removed from scene. Terry
Re: [Vo]: Correa Patent Issued
Chris, If you reread the original post where I complimented the Correa's and many others, you might notice it was I that was attacked by said Correa. MC: I can believe that, even though I haven't followed this thread from its start. A while back on Vo there were unjustified attacks from an associate of the Correas whose name I don't now recall. BTW, I contacted over 4000 others not listed from all branches of the Government, NASA and Universities seeking some small assistance, to no avail because I had no credentials, etc and what I said just couldn't possibly be real - but it is. MC: You experience is similar to the Correas, who made many attempts to interest various possible clients, without success. They have been approached by various interests which upon investigation appeard to be bogus. After all that, they have become defensive. If others want to think I have a bad attitude for calling a Spade a Spade - so be it, but from here out I will work as I can without expecting anything but the SOS from others. MC: And so you wind up in a similar position, bitter and a bit battle-weary, with a technology you believe works, unable to get support. This the fate of many in the OU field, and one reason why Gene Mallove tried to provide a receptive ear to people like you. He made serious efforts to be responsive and did put money in various devices, all of which proved to be fatally flawed. Greer at one point was making a similar effort, but I have heard no reports of success. Maybe some of the vorts should get off your duffs and invest in someone - and since Mike says the Correa's have an OU device - start with them. MC: I can cite four initiatives that I know of. 1) There is LENR/CMNS, with hundreds of papers by credentialed investigators, clear evidence of an energetic process but no device emerging from a somwhat disorganized field. 2) There is Mark Goldes, who has been maintaining a very correct position and now energes with a patent for a possible OU device. 3) There is PAGD, where there is a clear energy release from a 'aether' source [the Correa patent states that the energy source is unknown to the inventor, but eventually will be understood by the physics community]. The characteristics of PAGD are such that building a useful working device, such as a motor, powered by PAGD has been a difficult problem whose solution may be the substance of the recent patent. And, finally, 4) Mills' BlackLight Power process, which is well funded [$50+ million ], well organized, and may be close to commercial development. Items 1) and 4) require a fuel, both derivable from water. MC: The contract that the Correas one time wanted was an up-front irrevocable investment of some $15 million over a five year period, with the Correas retaining 51% control. In other words, the investor cannot control what is done or who does it. Lest this seem harsh, what the Correas wanted to do was assemble a team of their choice who would have guaranteed employment for five years to devote full time effort to the project. They could not do this with typical venture capitalists, who want control and may jerk the investment if they don't like what is going on. MC: Chris, acquiring and holding support requires much more than a good idea or device. Personality and many other factors enter in. MC: Good luck. Regards, Mike Carrell
[Vo]: Plug-in Hybrid School Buses
http://www.ic-corp.com/site_layout/news/newsdetail.asp?id=772 11 States are First in the Nation to Receive Hybrid School Buses as IC Corporation Awarded Bid by Advanced Energy Consortium IC Corporation Works with Enova Systems to Supply First Hybrid School Buses That Can Attain Up To 40 Percent Increase in Fuel Efficiency - Eleven states will be getting a higher grade for investing in energy-efficiency this school year. New York, California, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Arkansas, Iowa and Washington will be the first states in the nation to receive hybrid school buses. Through its Plug-In Hybrid Electric School Bus Project, Advanced Energy, a Raleigh, N.C.-based nonprofit corporation, initiated a buyer's consortium of school districts, state energy agencies and student transportation providers. After issuing nationwide Request for Proposals (RFPs) for hybrid school buses in June 2006, Advanced Energy announced today at the 13th Annual School Transportation News Expo that IC Corporation, the nation's largest school bus manufacturer, won the bid and will provide up to 19 hybrid school buses to those 11 states. more Here's the RFP: http://www.advancedenergy.org/corporate/initiatives/heb/rfp/HESB%20RFP%2006-01.pdf http://tinyurl.com/hwtmv The technical specs begin on p.48. Terry
[Vo]: First installment
In 1874, Jules Verne had finished publishing (in 62 installments !) his Robinsonade (yes, this is a real word, Robin) called The Mysterious Island, a tale which follows the adventures of a group of castaways who use their survivalist skills to build a functional community on a remote island. It is a kind of sequel, one might imagine, to Robinson Crusoe, or Swiss Family Robinson but with one memorable and endearing quote (for the waterfuel set). For Verne, being French, the escape vehicle of choice was a hot-air balloon (aka the Montgolfier) carrying five passengers (and a dog) which escapes from Richmond during the American Civil War. It is blown off course to an obscure island. After a skirmish with pirates, the group discovers a secret helper the reclusive Captain Nemo (from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea fame). Anyway, in Vernes tale, one castaway opined I believe that water will one day be employed as fuel, that hydrogen and oxygen which constitute it, used singly or together, will furnish an inexhaustible source of heat and light, of an intensity of which coal is not capable. Unfortunately, JV missed the big-op to have the castaways build an H2 filled montoglfier and air-sail into Paris. Plus, this vision being quoted was not as big a leap of faith on Jules part as might be imagined, despite the fact that it has not yet been perfected. Louis Jacque Thenard had already discovered hydrogen peroxide in 1818, and it was well-known that this molecule had significant fuel value when enriched to a level known as HTP and yet was basically a combination of the free-est-of-free raw materials i.e. air (enriched in O2) and water. O2 + 2(H2O) -- 2(HO-OH). Later, in 1839, William Grove built a gas battery that could reverse electrolysis what today we call the fuel cell and making the process of splitting water with electric current and the reverse process, both fairly well understood. Therefore, much of the underlying science was in place for Verne. But as Nemo sez: The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity. g or was that Harlan Ellison? What the decidedly smart Jules Verne did not know about, back then, was Sonochemistry - the application of ultrasound to chemical reactions. Nor did he know the details of Superoxidation, which can be viewed as the oxidation of a molecule to a redundant ground state - which is less stable than the normal oxidative state. Hydrogen peroxide can be viewed as superoxidated water. Nor did he know about radiolysis... It is probably clear where this post-vernian-vision is going, by now. Let me state up front that conventional science as of now - knows of no-way to directly produce hydrogen peroxide from water and air without going through a complicated chemical process. Here is a FAQ Page, with contributions from yours truly. I actually had to sign an NDA with the subsidiary company a few years back, as they thought this sonochemical possibility, and some other wild ideas, would be easy to pull-off. It wasnt. http://www.h2o2.com/intro/faq.html The origin of sonochemical effects is the phenomenon of acoustic cavitation. Acoustical energy is mechanical energy i.e. it is not absorbed by molecules directly as photons can be. Ultrasound is transmitted through a medium via pressure waves by inducing vibrational motion- which alternately compresses and stretches the molecule or water-structure. Cavitation can produce photons in the UV spectrum (sonoluminescence). UV light can split water. All this is well-known Unfortunatley UV, a key component in one of these versions of the scheme, will destroy HO-OH faster than it splits water. Normally. That is where Zeolites come in. Jones More in a subsequent installment. Don't know if there are 61 more, but it might be worth the effort - if anything herein will illuminate the path towards that long-delayed vision of Jules Verne.
Re: [Vo]: New Segway Products
The idea of good guys and bad guys in war is useless and distracting to what is actually happening. War is a means to gain power over others. War no longer makes a distinction between those who are fighting and those who are not. Both are killed with equal intensity, although it is still fashionable to claim the fig leaf of unintended collateral damage or a tragic mistake. Make no mistake, as the tools of war become more efficient and terrorism, which is the counter to those tools, become more universal, no one will be safe. We are passing through a transition period which has to end by people insisting on methods be used to avoid war and the resulting terrorism. But then, every one knows this, yet we go on supporting people who insist that war is necessary because it is very profitable for them. They are able to continue their policy because they know how to manipulate our fear and paranoia. But you say, real threats exist against which we must be defended. Of course this is true, but this is a never ending path that can not be fixed just by making every country a democracy, as Bush plans. The obvious consequence of this naive approach is being demonstrated every day in Iraq. We need to use our creativity to explore another way. Think about that rather than the Segway. Ed Jed Rothwell wrote: Terry Blanton wrote: One comment was, imagine a Segway with a chain gun rolling into a batch of bad guys and spinning wheels in opposite directions while firing. Hopefully, the next battlefield will have only bad guy blood spilled on it. Can this gadget tell who is bad, and who is innocent? - Jed
Re: [Vo]: RIP Detroit - Formally: Detroit Sees the Light
On 8/11/06, OrionWorks [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Meanwhile, according to the article that Terry supplied us with, there are other contenders in the market, like the Xebra, a city car made by the company Zap, a 3 wheeler that goes as fast as 40 mph and can go as far as 40 miles per charge. The cost: A much more reasonable $8,900. No need to compromise or wait. This North Carolina company: http://www.hybridtechnologies.com/products.php will sell you a practical PT Cruiser for only $40k or a SmartCar for only $35k that will let you thumb your nose at Exxon. Terry
Re: [Vo]: New Segway Products
On 8/11/06, Edmund Storms [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We need to use our creativity to explore another way. That's easy: 1) Make energy free. 2) Eliminate religion. It's only the path which is in question. Terry
Re: [Vo]: New Segway Products
Terry Blanton wrote: On 8/11/06, Edmund Storms [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We need to use our creativity to explore another way. That's easy: 1) Make energy free. Unfortunately, free energy would not solve the problem. Free energy would mean the Middle Eastern countries would be even poorer than they presently are. Israel is only rich because it is supported by the US and donations, and it has harvested brain power from all over the world. The countries have long since exhausted the environment of useful minerals, the climate is too dry for extensive agriculture, and most of the soil is poor thanks to centuries of poor management. A country needs to produce something the rest of the world wants. Of course, if we did not need oil, we would ignore the internal conflicts there just like we do when they occur in countries of Africa where oil is not present. Thanks to the tools of terrorism, people who are sufficiently unhappy can no longer be ignored. 2) Eliminate religion. Religion is the only concept that justifies being as good as we are. Very few people are good just because it is their nature. Granted, religion is taken to extreme, but all ideas are taken to extreme sooner or later. If religion and the rules it imposes are not applied, what do you suggest be used in its place? It's only the path which is in question. That is true. How do we get people to follow the best path? Ed Terry
Re: [Vo]: New Segway Products
On 8/11/06, Edmund Storms [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Free energy would mean the Middle Eastern countries would be even poorer than they presently are. This was not intended to be an epistemological thread; however, since you ask, free energy means no one is poor and no one is rich. All men are equal just as money and oil are equal. If religion and the rules it imposes are not applied, what do you suggest be used in its place? Veritas. Truth. The Cathars actually had it right. Materialism is the evil of the world. Recreate the Library of Alexandria on the WWW. Once free energy relieves people of striving for existence then they will be free to seek understanding of existence. How do we get people to follow the best path? The Path has been obscured by men of power. We must take away that power. The Word and the Path will become self evident if we remove fear from the life of humanity. Just my opinion, I could be wrong. Terry
[Vo]: FW: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday August 11, 2006
Forward from [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Akira Kawasaki) [Original Message] From: What's New [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 8/11/2006 2:18:48 PM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday August 11, 2006 WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 11 Aug 06 Washington, DC 1. JAMES VAN ALLEN: THE FIRST AMERICAN SPACE HERO, DEAD AT 91. Almost nothing was known about conditions beyond the ionosphere when the US launched Explorer I on 31 Jan 58. The Cold War was at its peak, and the Soviets seemed to own space. Sputnik I, launched 4 Oct 57, carried no instruments. Sputnik II, a month later, could only send back Geiger counter readings taken when it was in sight of the ground station. In June, however, at a conference in the USSR, James Van Allen, a physics professor at the University of Iowa, announced that Explorer I had discovered the first of the two Van Allen radiation belts. Soviet space scientists were crushed; the space age was not a year old and already the U.S. had taken the lead in science. Two years ago I visited Prof Van Allen in his office at the U. Iowa. At 89 he was down to a 7-day work week. He showed me an op-ed he was sending to the NY Times in which he described human space flight as obsolete http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN04/wn072304.html . I don't believe they used it. Van Allen said using people to explore space is a terribly old fashioned idea. 2. CLIMATE: FUEL PRICES MAY DO WHAT THE ADMINISTRATION WON'T. The Wall Street Journal, which is not exactly the voice of environmental extremism, commented today on NASA satellite measurements that show melting of the Greenland ice sheet to be more rapid than expected. On the same page was a story about General Motors cutting production of big SUVs. It seems that rising gas prices are causing sales to sag. An editorial by Donald Kennedy in today's issue of the journal Science, says the public is concerned about climate change and favors government action. State and local governments are voluntarily assuming what Kennedy refers to as a neglected federal mandate. I say, stay the course. When the world runs out of fossil fuel the greenhouse problem will begin to solve itself. 3. MAGNETS: MAYBE YOU JUST NEED TO GET YOUR MOLECULES ALIGNED. Whatever the problem, someone will sell you a magnet to fix it. Gas prices brought out the usual magnets that attach to the fuel lines to get the fuel molecules pointed right. Or you could walk instead of driving, but you may need magnets in your shoes to keep your feet from getting tired. When all else fails, turn to wine, but you may want to give it a little polish by attaching a magnet to the bottle neck (available from Bev Wizard, $30). 4. FREEDOM OF SCIENCE: OR WHY THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD WORKS. In my mail this week was The First Open Letter about the Freedom of Science from somebody named G.O. Mueller in Germany. It went to 290 public figures in Europe and the USA. Must be a lot of G.O. Muellers in Germany. This one thinks the Special Theory of Relativity is nonsense. He says 2896 publications agree with him. He's probably right, I've been sent about that many over the years. I would say the system is working just about right. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnewA=1
Re: [Vo]: New Segway Products
Edmund Storms wrote: Unfortunately, free energy would not solve the problem. Free energy would mean the Middle Eastern countries would be even poorer than they presently are. Probably, but that will be their choice, and the outcome will be their fault. The countries have long since exhausted the environment of useful minerals, the climate is too dry for extensive agriculture, and most of the soil is poor thanks to centuries of poor management. As I pointed out in my book, with cold fusion you can make any climate as wet as you like, with a massive desalination project. You can also reverse soil depletion, and for that matter, you can grow all of your food indoors and not worry about the land (although I hope people will worry about it, and take care of it). All of these things can be done, but whether they will be done or not is a matter of choice or free will. A country needs to produce something the rest of the world wants. I do not think that will be as true in the future. I think people will be more autonomous, particularly in the far distant future when manufacturing is done entirely with robots and local resources are intensely recycled using high-energy techniques. However, any country anywhere can produce something the rest of the world wants. Places like Japan and Singapore have practically no material resources. If resources mattered, Japan would be dirt poor and Mexico would be one of the wealthiest countries in the world. As I said in the book, and just this week translated into Japanese: Many people have a sneaking suspicion that cold fusion must be too good to be true, because nature never does something for nothing. They think everything is difficult, and there is always a price to pay for the bounty of nature. Resources are now and always will be in short supply, and we must therefore compete with others to get our share. Such people are mired in a stone-age mentality. The only resources we lack are knowledge and science. Knowledge is power, and with it we can unlock the unthinkably vast material and energy resources of the earth, and ultimately of the entire solar system. . . . All notions of wealth and poverty, and probably the entire notion of economic systems will become meaningless in the distant future. This is the trend of history already, as I point out in chapter 21. By the standards of the past, all of us in the first world are fabulously wealthy and we all have godlike powers. In some poverty-stricken third world countries in Africa politics, corruption, war, overpopulation and lack of resources have kept people in misery against their will. But in the Middle East countries such as Iran, Iraq and Egypt there is plenty of wealth and education. These people have, in effect, chosen to make themselves miserable. Their problem is culture, history and politics, not religion. Muslim people in India and in the US are as wealthy as anyone else. As a US Army general said the other day regarding Iraq, they have to choose whether they love their children more than they hate their neighbor. So far, they have chosen hate. But that may change. You never know what people will do next. We have free will. - Jed
Re: [Vo]: New Segway Products
The idea of good guys and bad guys in war is useless and distracting to what is actually happening... I believe statements such as that are distracting. At its simplest, if one person is an aggressor and starts a fight, Nature has decreed that the intended victim fights back, and if possible, kills the aggressor. There's a whole body of Eastern thinking - call it philosophy if you wish - that deals with just that type of situation. Many wise men - far wiser than you or I - have understood this and written about it realistically. These wise men seemed to have no problem defining bad guys and good guys. In fact, the Bhagavad Gita takes place on the battlefield, where good guys fought bad guys... because they simply had no alternative. The bottom line is that the bad guy is the guy who is about to harm or even kill either yourself or those you love dearly, no matter what his excuse. To deny this is simply hypocrisy, because you know what you would do or try to do if pushed. ...we go on supporting people who insist that war is necessary because it is very profitable for them This makes the assumption that we're all too dumb to see through this. No doubt there is profit to be made from weapons, but it doesn't take our fear and paranoia to see what's happening around the globe. It's simply a matter of opening our eyes then acting appropriately. Is everything we read true? Of course not, but if even a fraction of the deluge of nasty information to which we are subjected is true, then we ought to take notice and support our own defence. Democracy? In Iraq? A red herring? Absolutely! You can't change people; they have to want to change, and want to change badly. And sometimes even that doesn't work. Having said that, is there Another Way? Well, I'm afraid that most people (who really don't want to change or even rethink their own paradigms) ultimately learn only by pain in some form or other. And when, in some quarters, attempts to change people through kindness is regarded as weakness, there aren't too many other options. It's a binary world, whether you like it or not... You could call it a quantum world if you like... P. At 12:24 PM 8/11/2006 -0600, you wrote: The idea of good guys and bad guys in war is useless and distracting to what is actually happening. War is a means to gain power over others. War no longer makes a distinction between those who are fighting and those who are not. Both are killed with equal intensity, although it is still fashionable to claim the fig leaf of unintended collateral damage or a tragic mistake. Make no mistake, as the tools of war become more efficient and terrorism, which is the counter to those tools, become more universal, no one will be safe. We are passing through a transition period which has to end by people insisting on methods be used to avoid war and the resulting terrorism. But then, every one knows this, yet we go on supporting people who insist that war is necessary because it is very profitable for them. They are able to continue their policy because they know how to manipulate our fear and paranoia. But you say, real threats exist against which we must be defended. Of course this is true, but this is a never ending path that can not be fixed just by making every country a democracy, as Bush plans. The obvious consequence of this naive approach is being demonstrated every day in Iraq. We need to use our creativity to explore another way. Think about that rather than the Segway. Ed Jed Rothwell wrote: Terry Blanton wrote: One comment was, imagine a Segway with a chain gun rolling into a batch of bad guys and spinning wheels in opposite directions while firing. Hopefully, the next battlefield will have only bad guy blood spilled on it. Can this gadget tell who is bad, and who is innocent? - Jed
Re: [Vo]: New Segway Products
Israel is only rich because it is supported by the US and donations, and it has harvested brain power from all over the world. Now that's what I call a rich statement. Can you explain it so that mere mortals like myself can understand it? P. At 02:56 PM 8/11/2006 -0600, you wrote: Terry Blanton wrote: On 8/11/06, Edmund Storms [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We need to use our creativity to explore another way. That's easy: 1) Make energy free. Unfortunately, free energy would not solve the problem. Free energy would mean the Middle Eastern countries would be even poorer than they presently are. Israel is only rich because it is supported by the US and donations, and it has harvested brain power from all over the world. The countries have long since exhausted the environment of useful minerals, the climate is too dry for extensive agriculture, and most of the soil is poor thanks to centuries of poor management. A country needs to produce something the rest of the world wants. Of course, if we did not need oil, we would ignore the internal conflicts there just like we do when they occur in countries of Africa where oil is not present. Thanks to the tools of terrorism, people who are sufficiently unhappy can no longer be ignored. 2) Eliminate religion. Religion is the only concept that justifies being as good as we are. Very few people are good just because it is their nature. Granted, religion is taken to extreme, but all ideas are taken to extreme sooner or later. If religion and the rules it imposes are not applied, what do you suggest be used in its place? It's only the path which is in question. That is true. How do we get people to follow the best path? Ed Terry
Re: [Vo]: New Segway Products
Edmund Storms [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The idea of good guys and bad guys in war is useless and distracting to what is actually happening. War is a means to gain power over others. War no longer makes a distinction between those who are fighting and those who are not. Both are killed with equal intensity, although it is still fashionable to claim the fig leaf of unintended collateral damage or a tragic mistake. Make no mistake, as the tools of war become more efficient and terrorism, which is the counter to those tools, become more universal, no one will be safe. We are passing through a transition period which has to end by people insisting on methods be used to avoid war and the resulting terrorism. But then, every one knows this, yet we go on supporting people who insist that war is necessary because it is very profitable for them. They are able to continue their policy because they know how to manipulate our fear and paranoia. But you say, real threats exist against which we must be defended. Of course this is true, but this is a never ending path that can not be fixed just by making every country a democracy, as Bush plans. The obvious consequence of this naive approach is being demonstrated every day in Iraq. We need to use our creativity to explore another way. Think about that rather than the Segway. Ed Storms recent comments bring to mind the movie documentary I viewed last week, Why We Fight now available on DVD. I highly recommend it. A warning. It was depressing to watch. What really was brought to home for me was a comment made by an analyst near the end of the film where he described the United State's current actions in IRAQ as the equivalent of a nation practicing colonialism. Call me ignorant. Call me naïve as well, but in all honesty I hadn't really viewed our tragic military campaigns in IRAQ in terms of colonialism. It fits, tragically so. Our nation is forced to build up and then maintain huge troop strengths in a foreign country, all in order to prop up cooperative government so that we can sell products to them and, in turn, purchase natural resources at bargain basement prices. That colonialism. Its pretty obvious to most of us that we didn't invade Iraq for the sake of spreading democracy in Middle Eastern countries. It's also now pretty obvious to most of us that the excuse we had been given, the one that had been carefully orchestrated for public consumption, for the removal of WMDs, was in fact a gross manipulation of the actual facts. We are now painfully becoming aware of the fact that there actually existed strong evidence indicating that no WMDs actually existed in Iraq, evidence for which the administration had in their possession at the time critical decisions to go to war were being made, and which were deliberately and tragically ignored. Once we got in and, predictably, no WMDs were found, it really didn't matter. Bush Jr. can pontificate endlessly all he wants about the lofty ideals of spreading democracy across the planet, and particularly in a number of Arab countries. I'm sure George's handlers carefully fed him those ideals in the hope that he would start having fantasies of becoming THE president who goes down in the history books as having initiated the Bush Doctrine, where democracy would finally begin to took root and spread across the planet, particularly when all of his predecessors had failed in this noble task. Regarding the ideals of spreading democracy, I couldn't believe how naive Bush was in some of his prelude to invasion comments when he described how western democratic political systems should begin to take root in countries like Iraq after we pushed Saddam's regime out of the way. Of what value are the complicated checks and balances that make up the messy political structures we call democracy to a population that for decades has experienced nothing but a sta! te of totalitarianism, the equivalent of a family run mafia business. How could anyone assume that the majority of Iraqis who have experienced nothing but a totalitarian regime for most of their lives would quickly chose to embrace democracy as a better form of government. How could anyone expect democracies to suddenly take root in country where a new political system is literally forced upon the population by external forces, an invading nation. True democracy has always been a home grown process. It must grow from within. Democracy deliberately injected into any country by an invading nation is: Colonialism. It only sparks an insurgency to oust the invaders, the infidels, so that they can get back to business-as-usual. Contradicting myself somewhat, I suspect, as much as Iraqis would have despised our presence occupying their country I suspect the vast majority of them would have chosen to keep their justified outrage in check had our administration had the foresight to plan for an orderly transition,
Re: [Vo]: New Segway Products
- Original Message - From: Edmund Storms [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Vo]: New Segway Products The idea of good guys and bad guys in war is useless and distracting to what is actually happening. War is a means to gain power over others. War no longer makes a distinction between those who are fighting and those who are not. Both are killed with equal intensity, although it is still fashionable to claim the fig leaf of unintended collateral damage or a tragic mistake. Make no mistake, as the tools of war become more efficient and terrorism, which is the counter to those tools, become more universal, no one will be safe. We are passing through a transition period which has to end by people insisting on methods be used to avoid war and the resulting terrorism. But then, every one knows this, yet we go on supporting people who insist that war is necessary because it is very profitable for them. They are able to continue their policy because they know how to manipulate our fear and paranoia. But you say, real threats exist against which we must be defended. Of course this is true, but this is a never ending path that can not be fixed just by making every country a democracy, as Bush plans. The obvious consequence of this naive approach is being demonstrated every day in Iraq. We need to use our creativity to explore another way. Think about that rather than the Segway. == Let me pose some contrarian thoughts: 1) Technology can be thought of existing on a series of plateaus. It is very difficult to ascend to the next higher plateau, but once there, one can travel far with little incremental effort. 2) The integrated circuit manufacturing process is one of most important developments in human history -- from it computers and othere digital devils and delights flow. Its stimulus was the need for microcircuitry for ICBMs -- else that plateau might not have been reached for decades. 3) Mass production is the hallmark and bane of our world, but it had its roots in the development of interchangeable parts for rifles in the Civil War. 4) An overwhemling need is necessary to focus energies to scale a plateau; it often comes from war. 5) 9/11 was a non-event. 3000 lives lost, but ten times that number die in auto accidents every year without a national outcry. A billion dollars worth of buildings destroyed? Nothing in a trillion dollar economy. But we were bloodied and the demand to be **safe** led to immense expenditures and a ill-considered war. A small investment by terrorists led us to do immense damage to our selves. 6) The obsessive demand to be safe is itself very dangerous, for it leads to unintended consequences. The recent plot to down several airplanes sent ripples around the world and threaten air commerce. Once upon a time, every ocean voyage was fraught with danger, but people went forth in ships anyway. 7) Iraq is not about cheap oil for the US. The cheap way would have been to simply buy the oil from Saddam Hussain. But that also has consequences. 8) Democracy is not a panacea, and the US is not a democracy; it is a republic shielded from voter foolishness by the Electoral College who can pull us back from the brink of disaster by refusing to elect a popular demagogue. The Founding Fathers had a horror of pure democracy as illustrated by any number of elected idiots in other countries. What is needed is a peaceful way to despose kelptocratic leaders without the mess of a revolution. Mike Carrell
Re: [Vo]: New Segway Products
- Original Message - From: OrionWorks [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Vo]: New Segway Products I just posted a response to Ed's remarks, and now I wish to comment on Steve's thoughtful observations. I will snip both for brevity. The accusation that the US is acting as colonial power in the Iraq conflict is a bit glib. I submit that one general problem that the US has in the world is that we have no real taste for Empire. We would not list the daily casualties on the evening news without balancing it with the number of domestic murders and automobile deaths that day. To the Eurpoean colonial powers, manipulation of populaces and losses of life in suppressing rebellions was simply the price of empire, not an object of daily lamentation. Every time we exert military force it is too little to really control the situation and the demand for early withdrawal is not the act of a colonial power. It could be argued that the US conducts cultural and mercantile colonialism through Coke, McDonalds, etc. We may be masters of the art of advertising persuasion, but we do not force anyone to buy our products. On balance, we buy more than we sell. As I pointed out in my other post, the cheap way to get Iraq oil would be to have bought it from Saddam Hussein at market price. When Britian controlled India, it bought raw materials and forced the purchase of manufactured goods, including salt. One of Ghandi's stunts was to lead a march to the sea to evaporate sea water to salt, defying Britain's ban on Indians making salt. Bush bashing is a current sport, but the context of US arrogance, ignorance, and lack of understanding of other cultures goes back through many presidents and has some basis in US religious extremism and apocalyptic expectations. Mike Carrell
RE: [Vo]: Re: Are we there yet?
I wonder if this couldn't be adapted as a safe storage production method for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles maybe not with beer cans per se (look officer, I'm just trying to get to work here. hee hee), but with blocks, rods, or pellets of material. Aluminum is not terribly cheep, but it is the most abundant element on the planet (most people think it's iron). There are probably lesser refined grades that could be cost effectively employed if properly adapted for this purpose. Might be fun to do a D.O.E. on the process to find the 80/20 that maximizes the H2 production rate... once that analysis is complete, it should be pretty simple to figure out whether or not it's a viable vehicle fuel source strategy. Reminds me of 'Back to the Future' when the professor comes back from the future at the end of the movie and digs through the trash for empty beverage cans and banana peels to power the food processor looking mini fusion reactor he's installed on the back of the car... -john -Original Message- From: Frederick Sparber [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, August 09, 2006 10:22 AM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]: Re: Are we there yet? [snip] you can dissolve Zinc, or Aluminum beer cans in a warm aqueous NaOH or KOH (lye) solution in a steel vessel and generate H2 like gangbusters . This forms a water soluble Zincate or Aluminate Catalyst.
