One For The Guys

Thanks Dad. He said maybe I had thought of this as a way to beat Flat rate.

I have actually thought of this at times.

I know I have dumped stuff out of my pickup backing up at full throttle and slamming on the brakes

All a guy could say is, "It ran when I pulled it!"

The Song Remains The Same

With zero apologies to Led Zeppelin, who pretty much ripped off every damned song they ever played from some old blues musician or another. Shit, the other day I read where even the guitar from Stairway was stolen. And to think how many hours I wasted on them in high school...quite literally.

What? It was the 70s. Get off me.

Anyway, this is about solar sail technology which I think is awesome in a retro kind of way. Given the fact that our planet is about 70% ocean and a lot of it was explored with sailing ships. I can't even imagine what it must have been like to just sail off over the horizon not knowing where you're going or what you'll find or how you'll kill the people who already live there so you can steal their gold.

So, here we are...starting to explore space and what are we using? Sailing ships.

I think that fucking rocks because it reminds us that for all our technological advancement there is still a whole hell of a lot we don't know. We want to go someplace over the horizon so we're falling back on the tried and true to get us started.

No doubt the technology will advance someday and sails in space will become playthings or historical curiosities, like the boats with sails that most of us know, but that's where we are right now, today. Hell, we ain't even there yet. We're still trying to figure out if hanging up a big ass piece of something that can catch the (solar) wind will even work.

We're gonna need to get off this planet someday so why not? We sure as hell ain't gonna row there.

Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta get back to wonderin' if that pic OB posted is really his girlfriend. She's hot enough, for damn sure...and the kitchen is small enough...but could a place known as The Weasel Den really be that tidy?

spongebobcrackwhore

Drill Baby Drill

OB...dude...Sir...posts like that are why I love you, man. You know how we always say we pretty much think alike but come at things from different angles?

Theory test:

I'm with the Drill Baby Drill crowd but not for the reasons anyone might think. If you ask me one of the best damn things we can do for ourselves and this planet is to use it all up. ASAP. Get rid of every last drop of that nasty shit. After it's gone we'll stop spilling it, stop polluting the air with it and stop fucking fighting over it.

We need desperately to get off our oil addiction and get serious about alternative energy sources but we're too fucking stupid and too fucking lazy. We'll keep on with the same old bullshit until it's gone because that's the easiest thing to do. We're more than a little stupid that way.

It'll be gone someday and thank gods I don't believe in that it'll take a few hundred million years for more to be formed. To paraphrase Douglas Adams, "So long and thanks for killing all the fish".

Good riddance.

But oil isn't the problem...we are. Just like guns don't kill anything on their own and pencils don't misspell words on their own. They're all inanimate objects that require our intervention, our misuse, our neglect, our greed and our stupidity to make them dangerous. Someday in the future people will look back at our time in history and be dumbfounded that we actually relied upon such a disgustingly foul source of energy.

It will be a very brief period in history...we started using oil in earnest what, about the late 1800s with the invention of the internal combustion engine? Peak oil is predicted to hit inside the next 50 years or so and with the way China and India are motoring up it ain't gonna fucking last too much longer than that. In my lifetime we'll be sucking out every last drop like a fat kid with a straw at the bottom of a Big Gulp from 7/11. So we'll have had about 200, maybe 250 tops, years of insatiable oil orgy? Meh...drop in the bucket over the course of even human history, which itself is nothing in the life of the planet. The real question is whether or not we'll be able to withstand the withdrawals.

It promises to be nasty. We get pissed off when gas costs 4 bucks a gallon. How pissed off do you think we'll be when it costs 100 or more? When the government is hoarding it all for the military? When only the super-fucking-rich can afford to fill 'er up? You want to talk about a revolution over health care or immigration or national ID cards...you can't even IMAGINE the turmoil that will come when the oil wells run dry and we haven't made arrangements to make it irrelevant.

Since we ain't smart enough to do that then I say it's a lot like going to the dentist. Have a seat, get a grip on the arms of the chair and say "drill away, Doc...let's fucking get it over with."

spongebobcrackwhore

Not a new idea but still a good one.

Community Supported Agriculture allows people to buy directly from farms.

I don't like that the headline uses the word "allows" since it smacks of guv'mint intervention someday...which'll probably happen since the state can't have people dealing directly with other people. They ain't gettin' their cut if they let THAT happen.

Wouldn't surprise me if the bastards came up with some way to tax you for growing food in your own damn garden someday.

And no, haters...it ain't Communism because the state isn't enforcing it. It's communalism and I'm all for people helping people as long as the god-damned government keeps it's nose out of our business.

spongebobcrackwhore

This Is Exciting, I Just Punked Myself!

No batteries, gas, oil or coolant.
You could use this thing to power your house, barn, whatever.
A regenerating super efficient electric motor with an automatic behind it.



H/T to my buddy Dale, my dad's oldest friend.

Cross posted at Fixer and Gordon's.

Update.
I've had Bullshit called so take it at face value until I can look into it.
I put it up right after getting it.

Update two
OHHHKAY, I see where I screwed up now. A nice gentleman pointed out the way I said regenerating violates the second law of thermodynamics.
Gotta love Google, I didn't have a clue.

Second Law of Thermodynamics - Increased Entropy
The Second Law of Thermodynamics is commonly known as the Law of Increased Entropy. While quantity remains the same (First Law), the quality of matter/energy deteriorates gradually over time. How so? Usable energy is inevitably used for productivity, growth and repair. In the process, usable energy is converted into unusable energy. Thus, usable energy is irretrievably lost in the form of unusable energy.

Thus the word regenerative would imply something along the lines of a perpetual motion machine, my bad.
I did find a reference to Mr. Reed and his remarkable engine here;
Conspiracy Central.
It concludes that attempts to locate Mr. Reed were unsuccessful.

Update 3.

Turns out he never did have a self sustaining motor and the video is bogus.
Nice.
Thats what I get for getting excited and putting it up without thinking critically.

My sincere apologies.

Go here for what happened and where it stands as of right now.

H/T One Fly for pointing me to the error of my ways.
Thanks bud.