Econapocalypse? You Tell Me

If you think the economic news cannot possibly get worse, take a look at the 30 minute excerpt of IOUSA THE MOVIE. The full length feature is meant to be shown in theatres and special venues, but 30 minutes is quite enough to get the basic idea.

Actually, anyone who remembers Ross Perot and his famous economic charts will be familiar with most of the ideas. The problem is that the situation has grown much worse since 1992. You want to hear something really scary? Over the next 10 to 20 years, the problem will grow exponentially worse.

Up until now, the surplus in FICA (Social Security) taxes has kept Americans from seeing the true extent of the problem. Bill Clinton's vaunted "balanced budget" years depended upon a blatant theft of the FICA surplus to pay for actual budget deficits. And Bill Clinton depended on Newt Gingrich and his boys to hold his feet to the fire, budget-wise. The US Congress in control now is a far cry from the budget hawks elected in 1994, and the US President now has no executive experience -- and seems to believe that the rules of economics do not apply to anything he decides to approve.

The US electorate is clearly unprepared for what is coming around the bend. The media cannot be trusted for truthful or objective reporting, so it is up to each voter and citizen to make himself informed on the deeper issues involved. That level of personal responsibility is extremely unlikely, among today's voters.

What I am trying to tell you, as gently as possible, is that the underlying economic landscape shaping the next few decades of the US economy, is dismal. Whether the Obama / Pelosi reich enables unions and trial lawyers to destroy private industry, whether nationalised medicine destroys the amazingly productive US pharmaceutical and medical technologies industries, whether the US government nationalises all banks and news media -- or not. The economy is in very big trouble.

The current credit and banking problems are significant but not cataclysmic. They can be dealt with as long as Obama / Pelosi do not come completely unhinged. The way the O / P reich wants to deal with the "climate catastrophe" is a good example of coming unhinged. Wasting a trillion dollars on useless mitigation, doing tens of trillions damage to industry, and creating a "political peak oil" that will make the summer of 2008 energy crisis look like a walk in the park....all that and more, you can expect O / P to attempt.

But all of that would only be hastening the inevitable. Watch the 30 minute clip here. Then look up some books by Peter G. Peterson, such as Running On Empty or Gray Dawn. Link to Peter G Peterson Foundation, for more background.

To Obama and Pelosi, the current relatively small crisis (worst since 1930s!) looks like a golden opportunity to turn the US into the socialist paradise of their dreams. To more disciplined and farsighted thinkers, the current problems are a not-so-gentle reminder that we have allowed too many bloated hogs to feed at a shrinking trough for far too long.

The combination of the commodities boom and bust, the financials crash, the mortgage default crisis, and the recent US election of the perfect storm of fools, should serve as a wake up call -- for those who are capable of waking up. Unfortunately, they appear to be few in number. Which leaves each person with important decisions to make.

We are not currently living through a repeat of the 1930s. Not yet. Obama and Pelosi have a long ways to go -- with the help of the Krugmans of the world -- to get things that bad. But when the demographic bust of unfunded mandates hits the fan, we might look back on the 1930s US with a sense of nostalgia.

Only a perfect storm combination of intelligent, aware, and responsible government officials throughout the congressional, executive, and judicial branches of US government will be able to mitigate the coming nightmare. Or, just maybe, the right combination of technological breakthroughs will give even typically feeble-minded government officials the courage to act responsibly -- or better yet, make government actions inconsequential to the real world.

We intend to cover both angles here at Al Fin. As always, be prepared.

Update: From the Peter G Peterson Foundation website, this link to Indebted.com will keep you up to date on the US National Debt. You can also check out the ultra-short animated clip "Indebted, We're Broke, Let's Fix It" from MTV U. That national debt clock may seem to be moving slowly, but just keep watching it.

The odds are that no one is going to fix this problem. What do you do?

Miscellaneous Links of Lists of Links .....

I found this list of 100 open courses to learn about the human body from one of my favourite biology blogs, Biosingularity. While looking over the source blog for the list -- www.nursingdegree.net/blog -- I discovered several other interesting lists of links including:

100 best health and nutrition blogs for athletes
Top 100 herbal medicine blogs
Top 50 Eastern Medicine blogs
100 Recipes for delicious easy to make smoothies
100 health and wellness resources for runners
100 free online tools to measure brain fitness
100 best sites and resources for med students
25 top medical search engines
Ultimate guide to yoga 100 blogs, tutorials, resources

I enjoy looking at long lists like you find at Amazon.com and other retailers and information sites. For example, Alexa's top 500 websites worldwide by traffic
There is something mind-expanding about long lists of top resources. Of course it is easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer number of available resources on the web, so pace yourselves.

Making Nuclear Fission Sustainable and Safe

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Ancient and medieval alchemists dreamed of transmuting lead to gold. But modern alchemists can use neutron transmutation to turn nuclear waste into useful energy -- a far more useful transmutation. Recently, both Brian Wang and Brian Westenhaus have discussed a new approach to nuclear transmutation from the University of Texas, Austin.

The Texas group plans to use a combination of a tokamak fusion neutron source along with a "Super X Neutron Divertor" to transform a blanket of nuclear waste into productive nuclear fuel -- producing heat from fission to make steam and generate electrical power.

Is the Tokamak fusor the best source of neutrons for this project? Perhaps, perhaps not. I suspect not. But until Focus Fusion or the Polywell group can begin generating neutrons in the quantities required for converting nuclear waste into fissile fuel, we may be stuck with the Tokamak.

Nuclear fission has been growing safer and more reliable over the past few decades, and the fission power industry has been planning a significant expansion worldwide. An injection of new fuel supplies from this hybrid fusion:fission approach would be an important boost to the long-term sustainability and safety of fission power.

No need to store nuclear waste, just keep re-using it until it is no longer dangerous (or potential fuel). Environmentalist Luddites hate the idea of nuclear energy, and since they dominate the Obama administration, it is unlikely that this important development will receive much support from Luddite DC.

But science continues, even when the dominant reich is made up of fools and nihilists. University labs, National Labs, and private labs have an amazing amount of research momentum going. It will take some time for the Luddites in DC to gain total control of all science funding. By that time, we can always hope that voters will have come to their senses.

Cross posted at Al Fin Energy

Obama / Pelosi : Pissing Away the Tax Revenues of Future Generations On Short-term Bandaids That Don't Solve Our Problems

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The problem with this country is we spent all of our time and resources creating money out of thin air using leverage and smoke and mirrors or serving each other lattes. America needs to produce actual stuff in order to get back on our feet. The government can spend money wisely to steer us down that path...or it can continue to piss away the tax revenue of future generations on short term Band-Aids that don't solve our problems. _MotleyFool

The US is poised on the brink of a disastrous monetary and budgetary policy that will destroy the surviving financial infrastructure of the country, along with any reasonable prospects for an early recovery. We are being given a gargantuan "recovery bill" that is all about political retrenchment for democratic party supporters. Not a recovery bill at all, but rather a wealth transfer bill from producers to political hacks, financial vultures, and non-producers.

If you have worked hard, followed the rules, paid your bills and taxes -- too bad. Unless you are politically well-placed to benefit under the Obama / Pelosi reich, you are only the main course. By the time this financial wrecking ball has done its demolition, your hard-earned assets will be worth a fraction of their current value, unless you make timely preparations.

It is thus almost a dead certainty that the combination of wasteful Keynesian spending (if you will ignore the tautology) and supply-side effects would produce a sharp spike in inflation that is designed to buttress the ability of borrowers to repay their obligations while rendering the value of their payments almost moot for lenders.

Asians [ed: and others] have saved a lot since the end of the Asian financial crisis, but will find an acceleration of wealth diminution upon them in months to come. Their only defense against this course of action that the G-7 countries have embarked on would be to boycott all debt issuances from the US and Europe over the near-term until yields rise fast and far enough to compensate for inflationary risks. Unless this can be pushed through, the only safe assets would be those that can hold a degree of their purchasing power,namely physical commodities and, of course, precious metals such as gold. _AsiaTimes

Inflation makes it easier for debtors to repay their debts. Since the US government is the big daddy of debtors, it makes sense for Obama and Pelosi to flush the dollar's value down the toilet. They can run the printing presses all night long. When will they start printing a $1 Billion bank note? Give them time.

During the stock panic, central banks around the world panicked. They fear deflation too, so they started cranking up the printing presses at phenomenal rates. The epic deluge of money they unleashed is going to filter into the real economy and drive up general price levels.

You can see this above in MZM growth. The US economy is shrinking thanks to the panic, there are less goods and services on which to spend money. Yet simultaneously the Fed is recklessly ramping broad money at double-digit rates. Sooner or later relatively more money will be bidding for relatively less goods and services, which will drive up prices. You simply can’t have 10%+ MZM growth without seeing big inflation eventually. _SeekingAlpha

Economists and bankers have leveraged themselves up into the stratosphere. Without hyper-leverage buoying them up, they get a strong sinking feeling in their stomachs. The world economy lost a lot of leverage when the commodities boom busted,and home price drops triggering the sub-prime bubble burst. A lot of big-money shops had to close their doors or get bought out. Nowhere to run, hide, shelter, or hedge. The ivy league whizzards [sic-pun] on Wall Street ran out of government sanctioned magic wands.

The direct result was the election of Obama-Messiah, Saviour to the world. Everything the Obama / Pelosi reich is doing now is for short term advantage. Empower the get out the vote for 2010 by giving billions to ACORN. Firm up the DP alliance with the public employees unions, trial lawyers, news media, and low income voters. First assure the retention of power. Then if anything is left over, perhaps you should try to help the economy.

Unfortunately, by the time the reich gets around to constructive purposes, the foundations will have been undermined -- perhaps beyond repair. Take care of your own future, the O / P reich only looks out for its own.

Do You Really Need Sleep?

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The longer we go without sleep, the stronger the pressure to sleep grows. The reason for "sleep pressure" after going without sleep for an extended time, is a buildup of particular chemicals in specific parts of the brain.

Dr. Halassa says that the results of the new study show that "adenosine from astrocytes clearly regulates sleep pressure." He notes that this is the first time a non-neuronal cell within the brain has been shown to influence behavior. Unlike neurons, astrocytes do not fire electrical spikes, and they are often described as support cells.

In experiments on mice, Dr. Halassa and his colleagues used a genetic switch, called the dnSNARE transgene, to block the release of adenosine and other chemicals from astrocytes. The researchers then deprived the mice of sleep for short periods, and evaluated them with behavioral tests and with electroencephalography (EEG), a means of recording brain activity.

Mice subjected to the genetic blockade exhibited less sleep pressure than control mice. Following sleep deprivation, they did not need as much compensatory sleep, and during the early phases of sleep, they had patterns of brain activity consistent with low sleep pressure. When they were evaluated with a memory test, they performed as if their sleep had been undisturbed.

The researchers observed similar results when they used certain compounds to block the effects of adenosine on neurons. Neurons have several types of cell-surface receptors that enable them to respond to adenosine, but only pharmacological blockade of the A1 type of receptor was effective. That result shows that adenosine acts through the A1 receptor to produce sleep pressure. _MNT

These results hint that most humans may not need to sleep as much as they do. If new drugs can influence sleep pressure by acting through the A1 receptors of neurons in the VLPO sleep-inducing area of the brain without serious adverse effects, humans in a wide range of professions and vocations might be able to perform to a higher standard.

Only further research can tell whether other problems -- such as memory loss or behavioural instability -- may occur despite the absence of sleep pressure, when extended sleep deprivation is induced. Eventually the brain centers responsible for maintaining attention and vigilance would presumably "run down" and require replenishment. Controlled experiments should tell us how long the sleepless period can be safely extended.

Since several other brain areas besides the VLPO are involved in control of sleep, it is inevitable that eventually the brain will run into a brick wall of some type, without sleep. It will take time and work to find all the answers, but for now sleep scientists have a solid theory to work with.

The Age of Sustainable Machines from DARPA

A new type of autonomous robot will soon be loosed upon the land. A robot that forages, grazing on weeds and shrubbery, on rotten logs -- even on dried out roadkill and other carcasses. This is DARPA's EATR (Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot), by RTI. It will be fueled by the Cyclone external combustion engine that can run on virtually any type of dry carbonaceous material.

The EATR is an autonomous robotic platform able to perform long-range, long-endurance military missions without the need for manual or conventional re-fueling. The system is designed to obtain its energy by foraging—engaging in biologically-inspired, organism-like, energy harvesting behavior which is the equivalent of eating.

The patent pending robotic system can find, ingest and extract energy from biomass in the environment (and other organically based energy sources), as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil and solar) when suitable.

...RTI calculates that about 3-12 lbs of dry vegetation (wood or plants) used as fuel in the Cyclone will produces 1 kWh. This equates to 2-8 miles driving, or more than 80 hours of standby, or 6-75 hours of mission operations (depending on power draw and duty cycle) before EATR would need to forage, process and generate/store power again. About 150 lbs of vegetation could provide sufficient energy for 100 miles of driving. _GCC

We humans long prided ourselves as being at the top of the food chain. But soon we may find ourselves considered prey by robotic predators capable of "living" on dried human flesh. Potentially as tough as an Abrams tank, autonomous robotic grazers and predators might be extremely difficult to stop.

Consider an entire society of autonomous machines, taught to feed themselves using anything that is near to grasper. Watch them cooperate with each other to subdue all potential threats on land, sea, and air. They consider using solar energy, but the sun only shines so many hours a week. These machines have places to go and people to eat. They don't have time to sit around idle waiting for the sun to come out.

Perhaps eventually they learn to breed humans in huge farms. The machines learn to tap humans' electrical energy -- like batteries. Stacked thousands of energy-pods high, unconscious humans lie in nutrient solution, energy-tapped for as long as they produce a charge, then after becoming non-productive, flushed back into the primordial solution to begin again. What dreams pass through the unconscious minds of these once-ascendant primates, lying in their flooded pods?

Global Warming Mitigation: Like Government Spending, To the Stratosphere and Beyond!

“The realization that existing efforts to mitigate the effects of human-induced climate change are proving wholly ineffectual has fuelled a resurgence of interest in geo-engineering.”
—Prof. Tim Lenton

Sometimes when humans are given a little power and authority, they go insane. Not just a little bit insane. Sometimes they invent problems where none exist -- climate catastrophe!! Sometimes they take real problems and completely confuse the causes and underlying dynamics -- global economic meltdown!! In both cases, the solutions that are proposed are unlikely to do any good whatsoever. But to our dear leaders and bureaucrats, lack of response only tells them they need to keep doing the same things, only much harder, spending much more of your money while doing them!

Take the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming delusion, and its "cures."

Climate geoengineering proposals seek to combat the effects of climate change—in particular to counteract the effects of increased CO2 in the atmosphere. There are two basic approaches proposed: reducing the atmospheric absorption of incoming solar (shortwave) radiation, or removing CO2 from the atmosphere and transferring it to long-lived reservoirs, thereby increasing outgoing longwave radiation.

A number of schemes have been suggested including nutrient fertilization of the oceans, cloud seeding, sunshades in space, stratospheric aerosol injections, and ocean pipes.

The critical metric for a geoengineering scheme is its effectiveness in cooling the climate; _GCC

Unfortunately, no one has informed these intrepid researchers that the climate has already begun to cool. Despite the dishonest protestations of Michael Mann, James Hansen, and Albert Gore Jr., Antarctica is accumulating sea ice at "unprecedented" rates. Increased antarctic sea ice alone is a potent geo-engineering process which generates positive cooling feedback. You see? The Earth is geo-engineering itself!

Glaciers are growing once again in Alaska, Norway, Greenland. The arctic sea ice is recovering from its recent low in 2007. Both northern and southern hemispheres are experiencing unusually cool winters. All of this while a poorly understood solar cycle transition from cycle 23 to cycle 24 has seemingly stalled. 2008 Sunspot numbers were the lowest for this century, and the second lowest since 1900. The sun's magnetic field energy as seen by Earth is down 30% from normal. No one knows how this might affect the Earth's climate.

It is good to have tools for the times when you really need them. But it is wrong to use powerful disruptive tools just because you can. That applies equally to climate and economics.

Our leaders have currently gone a bit insane. Not just a little bit. Watch them carefully.

Seasteading Conference Video Plus A Modest Al Fin Proposal

Here is the almost two and a half hour video presentation of the Oct 10, 2008, Burlingame, California seasteading conference previously promoted here at Al Fin. For those who have not yet read the Seasteading Book, the video will give a bit of background on the phenomenon of seasteading.

Wired.com just published an article on seasteading and the seasteading conference. You will find more embedded videos on seasteading there, along with some background information and a timeline of seasteading.Sharp-eyed observers will notice that the architectural concept of a seastead presented in the Wired article [see above] would probably not survive many years in the open ocean. Perhaps most early seasteads will be placed in relatively protected environments, such as bays or inlets. But the true promise of seasteading lies in the unprotected open ocean environment of international waters.

To survive in the open ocean, a floating settlement would require some way of dealing with large waves -- including rogue waves and large storm waves. Thirty feet of clearance is insufficient for oceans where 30 metre rogues are quite possible. Seastead designers must factor in the impact of sustained high winds and sustained tall waves and chop.

I propose that the bulk of early seastead research and development should go into the design and construction of a prototype "floating breakwater". Such a breakwater should be able to combine the deflection and dissipation of large wave energies with the transduction of wave energy into useful energy in the form of electricity and compressed air. It should be able to neutralise a wave as large as a 30 metre rogue, and stand up to sustained gale force winds and accompanying storm waves.

Once you have constructed a floating breakwater that can stand up to the worst the sea can throw at you, building the rest of the seastead would be a piece of cake. But until you demonstrate the ability to build such a structure, the "smart money" will probably not take you seriously.

There is a huge demand for viable offshore freeholds located in international waters. Whether sailing under a flag of convenience, or attempting to declare independent nationhood, an offshore tax and financial haven that is made tough enough to withstand bullying by both the world's oceans and the world's tax ministries would attract wealth of all types. Such a place would be a magnet for tourists and adventurers as well.

Aeroponics food growing would be a natural fit to provide fresh produce. Soon after, aquaculture for biomass and seafood, and marine energy technologies would be tested and proven on seasteads. Ultimately, seasteads would also provide ideal locations for mid-ocean space launch and recovery facilities.

Never underestimate the power of the wind and the sea. Such raw power must be addressed at the outset. Consider it a rite of passage.

Brain Training May Not Improve Sexual Performance: Nintendo DS In Question

Recent research from the University of Rennes in Brittany suggests that popular brain training methods such as Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training, may not be as helpful as previously believed (or claimed). The researchers studied the memory training available for the Nintendo DS.

New research from the University of Rennes in Brittany has found that games such as those available for the Nintendo DS do not lead to increased memory performance.

The team studied the impact of the popular Dr Kawashima's Brain Training on 67 ten-year-olds. Alain Lieury, professor of cognitive psychology at the university, explained that improvements in memory and mental agility are more likely around the age of ten.

However, his team found that tasks such as completing homework, playing Scrabble or attempting a SuDoku puzzle improved results more than the Brain Training and Big Brain Academy games. _bcs

Similarly, an unofficial survey of current and former Al Fin sex partners reveals that the Nintendo brain training failed to improve sexual performance. Publication in Nature is pending peer review.

In all seriousness, the study from the University of Rennes should not be used to judge professional brain training of executive function for children, which has been found to be most effective between the ages of 4 and 6 years.

Energy Weapons In Air and Missile Defense

The US military, along with various defense contractors, is busy developing better ways of defending against attacks from the air. High energy lasers have proven themselves against planes and missiles, and now Boeing has a low-energy laser it is proving on testing grounds.

Last month, a small robotic plane flew into the skies over New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range. Tracking the drone was an experimental Humvee, equipped with a laser. The real-life ray gun then took aim at the drone, and began blasting. Soon, the drone had a hole burnt through it -- and was crashing down to the desert....what makes this test, held last month, a little different is that the laser was small, and low-powered. Which makes the ray gun, at least in theory, fairly easy to fit into an existing combat vehicle.

...The laser-equipped Humvee is a modified version of the Army's Avenger air defense system. It uses more traditional means -- eight missiles -- to take out low-flying targets. So why use the ray gun? "Laser Avenger, unlike a conventional weapon, can fire its laser beam without creating missile exhaust or gun flashes that would reveal its position," Boeing's Gary Fitzmire contends. "As a result, Laser Avenger can neutralize these UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] threats while keeping our troops safe." Wired

Combine various energy weapons with advanced robotic weapons, smart bombs, and nano-weapons, and the battlefield of the future will begin to seem very strange to contemporary minds. On top of all that, the eye in the sky sees all.

What happens to the peace-loving populations of the Earth when a new Fuhrer takes control of these advanced weapons systems? We may find out soon.

Between 200 and 20,000 Years' Worth of Uranium

The Earth holds over 200 years of uranium for nuclear power plants at current rates of consumption. But we know that more nuclear plants are being built, so humans will need to develop more ingenious ways of tapping the planet's uranium supply. The real supply of nuclear fuel is closer to 100,000 years.

If the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) has accurately estimated the planet's economically accessible uranium resources, reactors could run more than 200 years at current rates of consumption.

...Two technologies could greatly extend the uranium supply itself. Neither is economical now, but both could be in the future if the price of uranium increases substantially. First, the extraction of uranium from seawater would make available 4.5 billion metric tons of uranium—a 60,000-year supply at present rates. Second, fuel-recycling fast-breeder reactors, which generate more fuel than they consume, would use less than 1 percent of the uranium needed for current LWRs. Breeder reactors could match today's nuclear output for 30,000 years using only the NEA-estimated supplies. _SciAm

And then there are several ways of re-cycling nuclear fuel to double and triple fuel supplies. And then there is Thorium, which provides more nuclear energy yet.

Nuclear fusion will be available long before we run out of fissionable fuels for advanced generation nuclear reactors. The only shortage we have is a shortage of intelligent imagination coupled with a smart and competent workforce. We can thank government schools for dumbing down the workforce and voting population.

You may think there is a shortage of capital investment, but that is only in relative terms. As the proper technologies come along, they will be funded. Even with the NIC (narcissist in chief) "in control".

Another Revolution in Pharmacology

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Research into the effects of melanocortins is incredibly exciting in its potential to revolutionise medicine. Here are a few of the effects of melanocortin peptides on the brain:

Induction of spontaneous penile erections
Increase of [sexual] proceptivity and receptivity (in females)
Increase of motivation
Increase of attention
Improvement of short-term memory
Increase of visual retention
Lowering of auditory, gustatory and olfactory detection thresholds
Functional antagonism of opiate effects
Inhibition of feeding (satiety-inducing effect)
Antiinflammatory effect (sites of action: brain and immunocytes)
Antipyretic effect
Reversal of hypovolemic hypotension
Reversal of shock
Resuscitation after prolonged asphyxia
Improvement of recovery after traumatic brain lesions and spinal cord injuries
Delay of the aging-linked behavioural deficits
Beneficial influences in neurodegenerative disorders
Increase of regenerative capacity of peripheral nerves in postlesion repair
Improvement of diabetic and toxic neuropathies
_Pharmacological Research

Like I say, those are a few of the effects that have been discovered so far for the melanocortins (melanocyte stimulating hormones [MSH], ACTH). New drugs which can either block or stimulate these hormone receptors will likely revolutionise treatment for:

1. Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative disease
2. Stroke
   
3. Diabetic Neuropathy
4. Hemorrhagic Shock
5. Sexual Dysfunction for males and females
   
6. Obesity
7. Anorexia and Cachexia
8. Depression
9. Anxiety
10. Various learning disorders

...and quite a few things more. It is only in the past decades that scientists have been able to distinguish different receptor types for the many peptides and neurotransmitters affecting the brain and nerves. Now, it looks like nothing can stop the steamroller of biomedical and biotech research -- except perhaps bad government that wastes precious resources on policies that have failed for many generations.

If you have an interest in any of the listed diseases or hormonal effects above, visit the linked article and skip down to the section that interests you particularly. It is a long review article that covers a wide range of effects and potential therapies. I strongly recommend learning to read scientific articles -- despite their dryness -- because any person who can draw meaning from the early stages of research can often see into the future, and profit from that vision. If you wait until "science journalists" spell it out and dumb it down for you, it may be too late.

When the baby revolutions of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information sciences, and cognitive sciences begin to grow up and converge, you will begin to understand how quickly things can change.

Titanium Dioxide is a Serious Molecule

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Titanium dioxide is a common white pigment used in paint, sunscreen, and food colour. But it is as a photocatalyst that TiO2 is likely to truly throw its weight around. TiO2 can -- in the presence of ultraviolet light (in sunlight) -- break down almost any organic material into CO2 and H2O. As a photocatalyst, TiO2 has the potential to detoxify wastewater, split H2O into hydrogen and oxygen, and generate electricity in the presence of light, among other things. And TiO2 is just about as cheap as dirt so it can be used to control odour in kitty litter.

In Japan, they are using TiO2 to make self-cleaning walls and windows.

Photo-catalysts are substances that mediate chemical reactions and are activated by light energy. When organic matter comes into contact with them, it is oxidized at an increased rate and decomposes into water and carbon dioxide. Walls and windows coated with this property are thus enabled to break down any organic dirt that sticks to them.

...in 2007 ECO-TEX [utilized] a painting technique involving three-layers. The undercoat and pigment are applied as usual, but a third layer of transparent titanium oxide is then applied and fixed. This enables the titanium oxide to be fixed on the surface of the paint, enhancing its cleaning power to repel dirt, its durability, and the design potential of the paint.

According to TOTO, coating the outside walls of an average two-story house with ECO-EX has the same cleaning effect as 15 poplar trees, which are known for their air-purifying properties...The dirt-removing effect of these products greatly reduces the time and cost expended in keeping the outside walls of a building clean. _digitaljournal

As reported previously at Al Fin, clothing that incorporates TiO2 would be essentially self-cleaning in terms of organic dirt and stain. Just expose the clothing to the sun and it will self-clean.

TiO2 is a potent photocatalyst, so you probably would not want to inject it into your blood stream. Who knows what reactions would be catalysed? Who knows? An Xu, Yunfei Chai and Tom K. Hei. They studied the effect of TiO2 in mice.

Conclusions: Our results provided novel information that both TiO2 nanoparticles and C60 were taken up by cells and induced kilo-base pair deletion mutations in a transgenic mouse mutation system. The induction of ONOO [peroxynitrite anions] may be a critical signaling event for nanoparticle genotoxicity. _7thSpace

Since most mutations are not helpful to the organism, we will need to be sure that humans do not breathe TiO2 nanoparticles or otherwise take them into the body in large numbers.

Red Alert! Full Power to Shields, Scotty

Despite the coming of Obama-messiah, the world is becoming a more dangerous place. As fundamentalist Islam spreads its tentacles of jihad to Europe we can expect the spirit of Gaza to spread to Muslim ghettos of London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Marseilles, and Hamburg. We will need to learn how to protect ourselves from IEDs, car bombs, suicide pedestrian bombs, and other forms of explosive terror.

We can add thick armour to our vehicles, try to make ourselves invisible, or just hide inside our homes and workplaces. But if our homes and workplaces are to be made less vulnerable to explosive attack, we will need better materials. Enter bomb-resistant concrete:

The fibre-reinforced concrete was found to absorb a thousand times more energy than plain concrete and could therefore be used for bomb-proof litter bins and protection barriers. Although not yet used in the UK the concrete has been utilised in Australia in the design of slender footbridges and in the roofs of government buildings to strengthen them against mortar attack.

...The Ultra High Performance Fibre Reinforced Concrete (UHPFRC) resisted the high explosion blast without any disintegration from the back of the panels causing shrapnel. This is important in the use of protection barriers designed to shield people from bomb blasts.

Professor Steve Millard said: “Many of London’s tourist landmarks are surrounded by concrete to protect against terrorist attacks. However, the material does not absorb sufficient energy to prevent the creation of shrapnel which is one of the most lethal consequences of a bomb blast. UHPFRC is different because needle-thin steel fibres are added into the concrete mix instead of steel reinforcing bars to increase its tensile strength. _AtoZMaterials

More detailed information on UHPFRC here

In the not so distant future, we will not only need protection against explosive blasts, we will also need protection against radiation from dirty bombs, and against bio-chem hazard. Unless a way is found to contain the rapid expansion of militant fundamentalist Islam into Europe, South America, and South/Southeast Asia, there will be very little safety in public places around the world. Will we be "confined to base", communicating via telepresence and virtual reality, for our own safety?

Think about the world in the film "Twelve Monkeys," where civilisation has been driven underground into air-locked shelters by the eco-terrorist release of a deadly plague. This is a world well within our grasp. All we need to do is behave like the European Union and the government of the Netherlands. Persecute everyone who points out the dangers inherent in the unchecked spread of militant Islam. The Human Rights courts in Canada have made moves in that direction recently, and President Obama seems to be up for it.

To pre-emptively protect yourself, consider an underground concrete home built with explosion resistant concrete.

Underground concrete shelters provide the ultimate in security and protection from unexpected disasters. State of the art technology is implemented in the design and construction of these facilities, offering a wide range of protection possibilities. This differs from conventional construction as our facilities are engineered for an average of 15 to 20 PSI of external overpressure and Total Rems in Shelter rating (TRS) averaging 2. The structures are impervious to water penetration using the most advanced waterproofing systems available. The interior of these shelters can be furnished with many of the creature comforts of a modern home, making it as comfortable an environment as possible for the duration of any transitional period that you and your family may be required to sustain. All shelters are custom built and designed according to each client's particular needs. Factors such as: number of occupants, location and level of desired protection must all be taken into consideration when designing your shelter. _UndergroundShelter

Incorporate an airlock or two. Place a number of truck-bomb barriers to prevent close approach by vehicle bombs. Better yet, make your new "shelter-home" invisible to outside observers. Make all access via tunnel.

You ask, "Is all this really necessary?" No, of course not. Not this year, not next year, probably not for a decade or more. Then again, two years ago, did you expect the current recession and election of Obama-messiah?

Think it over. After Obama / Pelosi destroy the energy infrastructure of the US, and finish off the US economy, your choices will be reduced in number. After widespread bombings, radiation plumes, and a plague of engineered viruses and toxins, there may not be many people left to worry about these things anyway.

Building New Cellular Infrastructure

Tissue scaffolds are the next big thing for implants of the future. Like the scaffolding we see on construction sites, the nano scaffolds are being created by Ko to reconstruct damaged tissue within the human body. Burn victims would benefit from scaffolds used to regenerate new skin. Those with failing heart valves or damaged nerves could count on scaffolds to regenerate these parts from within the patient’s own body. As healing progresses, the scaffold, being constructed from a biodegradable material, is absorbed and metabolized by the body while slowly releasing drugs to aid in the healing process. _CyborgAge

Almost every part of the body presents opportunities for scaffold bio-engineers to experiment. From the heart to the spine to the skin, all parts of the body eventually wear out and need to be replaced or regenerated. Scientists at UC Berkeley are taking an entirely new approach to bio-scaffold development. They are using viruses (bacteriophages) to build a proteinaceous infrastructure that promotes regeneration of nerve tissue.

Some biological engineers are using scaffolds made of polymers to try to mimic the supportive matrix of real tissue. Seung-Wuk Lee, a bioengineer at the University of California, Berkeley, has turned to viruses instead. "Viruses are smart materials," he says. "Once you construct the genome, you can make billions of phages, and they're self-replicating materials." The phage that Lee is working with, called M13, is long and thin like the protein fibers that make up the cellular matrices inside the body.

First, Lee and his colleague Anna Merzlyak genetically engineered M13 to display nerve-friendly proteins on their outer coats. These proteins are known to help nerve cells proliferate, adhere, and extend into long fiberlike shapes. Next, the researchers grew large numbers of the viruses in bacterial-cell hosts and dropped them into a solution containing neural-progenitor cells. These cells are more fully developed than stem cells but are still young and need coaxing to form new tissues. In the solution, the viruses align themselves like a liquid crystal, says Lee. He and Merzlyak used pipettes to inject the solution into agar, a Jell-O-like cell-culture medium, creating long, nerve-like fibers of the virus interspersed with cells. The progenitor cells then multiplied and grew the long branches characteristic of neurons. Lee says that the phage are well suited to making long, fiberlike structures such as nerve tissue but can also be made into more complex structures by varying their concentration or manipulating their position with a magnetic field. _TechnologyReview

Lee is planning to move to research inside live animals next. He is interested to discover how the immune systems of animals will react to viral construction workers hammering, drilling, and welding new infrastructure deep inside the organism.

For regenerative medicine to take that next big step forward, it will need the ability to grow specific infrastructure for every tissue and organ type that will be replaced or regenerated. Then, scientists will need to integrate growth factors and stem cells into the new matrix, and provide optimal nutrient solution. The prognosis for significant progress in this area is extremely favourable.

Transcranial DC Stimulation Improves Learning

Research soon to be published in PNAS involves transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of the brain to aid learning a motor skill. The findings suggest that tDCS over the motor cortex can aid the learning and long term retention of a new motor skill.

The new paper targets an area of the brain known as the primary motor cortex, which helps control muscle movements. The authors focused on a learning task, one they describe as similar in principle to the process we go through when we learn a new sport. Subjects were given a device that measured the pressure applied between the thumb and forefinger, and asked to use it to maneuver a cursor through an on-screen obstacle course. One group of subjects received a current; the controls had electrodes attached, but received no current. The subjects were asked to come in for five consecutive days to repeat the process so that researchers could track how their skill improved.

By the end of day one, those who had an anode placed near the primary motor cortex were already pulling away from their peers (a cathode had no effect), and had opened up a large and significant gap by the end of day five. As expected, stopping the training at day five resulted in a gradual decline of the skills over time. Because the two sets of subjects showed declines of roughly the same rate, the gap that opened up during training wound persisting to at least 85 days after the training sessions ended.

Between days... the control group was prone to forget some of the skills they had developed; in contrast, those receiving the current actually came back the next day in better shape than they'd left the day before.

The authors argue that this fits in nicely with our model of how memories are formed, as it involves a three-step process of learning, consolidation, and retention. Clearly, the tDCS was only affecting the consolidation portion of the process.

Although the results are startling enough on their own—the fact that something as crude as sticking an electrode on your head is enough to have such specific consequences is quite surprising—they actually have significant practical implications. Strokes and many other types of brain damage often force their victims to relearn basic motor skills, from speech to walking. Given that tDCS is noninvasive and may help speed to recovery of these patients, I'd expect to see tests of its efficacy in the near future. _arstechnica

Other non-invasive approaches to electromagnetic brain stimulation include the external magnetic coil stimulator. An Israeli company named Brainsway has recently received European approval for using its deep TMS system to alleviate depression, bipolar disease and schizophrenia (H/T Brainstimulant). The interesting thing about the Brainsway is that it can be used to either inhibit or augment neural activity in the targeted part of the brain.

The prospect of improved learning through brain stimulation is just as exciting as the prospect of better therapies for depression, stroke, and other neuro-psychiatric disorders. We are aiming for something beyond normal. The next level.

Russia Wants to Be Your Energy Supplier

All efforts by the Kremlin to gain controlling stakes in energy companies, sign more contracts and increase the capitalization of Russia's energy giants, such as Gazprom and Rosneft, have taken place with larger strategic objectives in mind. For example, Gazprom's market capitalization was expected to reach US$1 trillion by 2014, turning it into the world's largest company based on market value , surpassing ExxonMobil. Russia also has coordinated its policies with those of other energy producers in the Middle East and Northern Africa and signed multiple contracts for developing energy capabilities in Latin America ._RussiaBlog

Russia wants to be able to dictate energy policy for the entire world, in the same way it dictates to Europe. The ability to control the world's energy markets and to decide who gets energy at what price, is something that Putin has wanted for Russia since 1997 when he wrote his doctoral thesis, while still governor of St. Petersburg.

Nobody really knows how deep the world economic crisis will be, how seriously it may still hurt Russia and how much time it will take Russia to get back on its feet. But one thing seems certain: its leadership has no other strategy [ed: than oil and gas] to help it recover its great power status and capabilities. The Kremlin has few other options than to preserve its model's principal petro-components, modify them by learning lessons from the crisis and hope for another opportunity to apply the model within the next five years or so. RussiaBlog

Without the help of western leaders, including Obama, Putin will never be able to wield that power of life and death over the nations of the western world -- including the US. If wise leaders in the west develop their own energy resources, Putin will never be able to use energy blackmail over them again. Unfortunately, Obama is already taking steps to reverse the pro-energy stance of the Bush administration, and threatens to put the US in a very vulnerable position vis a vis Russia and the Persian Gulf oil dictatorships.

A graph of Russia's population suggests a very interesting subtext underlying Putin's Machiavellian machinations. Russia is losing people, quickly. Most Russian women do not want to bring new life into an oppressive mafiacracy such as Putin oversees. Most Russian men are drunk and dying before they see 60. HIV and Tuberculosis are out of control. Most wealth and power are horded at the top levels of government while the majority suffer the waves of financial instability, crime, disease, and drug / alcohol use. No wonder the population shrinks.

Long-term, this presents Russia with a huge problem: How does it hold onto its vast land mass -- full of mineral wealth -- in the face of underpopulation within Russia and a vast and growing overpopulation in neighboring states? It is not a problem this year or next. But it will be a huge problem after 2030, if not before.

New Brain Probe Design Mimics Wood Wasp

Imagine this little probe digging into your brain, tooth by tooth. Like a wood wasp boring into a pine to lay its eggs, a human surgeon will penetrate your brain in search of interesting neuro-treasure. What are you hiding in there?

The researchers have developed a prototype silicon needle consisting of two shafts with 50-micrometre-long fin-shaped teeth. Motors oscillate the two shafts to propel the device forwards in the same way as the wood wasp's ovipositor (see diagram).

...Unlike existing rigid surgical probes, the device will be flexible enough to move along the safest possible route, bypassing high-risk areas of the brain during surgery, for example. It could also reduce the number of incisions needed to deliver cancer therapies to different parts of a tumour, as it can burrow its way to hard-to-reach areas.

Emma Johnson, who works on bio-inspired engineering at the University of Reading, UK, says that the device is likely to be better suited to harder, fibrous tissues like bone and muscle than to soft brain tissue. _NS

Oh, OK, thanks Emma. I was getting a little worried there. ;-)

Better brain probes are certainly on the way. It is important for neuro-clinicians to be able to access deep brain structures without damaging more superficial structures and pathways along the way. A silicon needle might work for rigid structures like bone if it is strong enough and not too brittle. A "silicone" or similarly flexible probe may be more suitable for tissue with the consistency of brain if it can track along a desired path reasonably well. Being able to slip a probe between nerve bundles and around brain nuclei may make for a happier post-surgical aftermath.

Eventually, nano-technological probes will be given most of the intra-cranial exploratory tasks.

4 Dimensional EEG Mapping

Tognoli and Kelso developed a novel colorimetric technique that simultaneously maps four dimensions of brain data (magnitude, 2D of cortical surface and time) in order to capture true synchronization in electroencephalographic (EEG) signals. Because of the fourth dimension afforded by this colorimetric method, it is possible to observe and interpret oscillatory activity of the entire brain as it evolves in time, millisecond by millisecond. Moreover, the authors’ method applies to continuous non-averaged EEG data thereby de-emphasizing the notion of “an average brain.” The authors demonstrate that only in continuous EEG can real synchronization be sorted from false synchronization – a kind of synchronization that arises from the spread of electrical fields and volume conduction rather than from genuine interactions between brain areas.

Watching the brain work in "real time" just got a bit easier.

For the brain to achieve its intricate functions such as perception, action, attention and decision making, neural regions have to work together yet still retain their specialized roles. Excess or lack of timely coordination between brain areas lies at the core of a number of psychiatric and neurological disorders such as epilepsy, schizophrenia, autism, Parkinson’s disease, sleep disorders and depression. How the brain is coordinated is a complex and difficult problem in need of new theoretical insights as well as new methods of investigation. In groundbreaking research published in the January 2009 issue and featured on the cover of Progress in Neurobiology, researchers at Florida Atlantic University’s Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences in the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science propose a theoretical model of the brain’s coordination dynamics and apply a novel 4D colorimetric method to human neurophysiological data collected in the laboratory.

......In addition to shedding insight on the way the brain normally operates, Tognoli and Kelso’s research provides a much-needed framework to understand the coordination dynamics of brain areas in a variety of pathological conditions. Their approach allows a precise parsing of “brain states” and is likely to open up new ways to study therapeutic interventions, in particular the effects of drugs (pharmaco-dynamics). Their approach will also help improve the design of brain computer interfaces used to help people who are paralyzed.

“In the future, it may be possible to fluently read the processes of the brain from the EEG like one reads notes from a musical score,” said Tognoli. “Our technique is already providing a unique view on brain dynamics. It shows how activity grows and dies in individual brain areas and how multiple areas engage in and disengage from working together as a coordinated team.” _Newswise _ via _ Physorg

It has always been the goal of brain scientists to learn the "language of the brain." How different parts of the brain communicate with each other, and coordinate the dynamic processes involved in consciousness and cognition (2 different things). Combining these dynamic brain studies with "connectomics"-- the working out of brain wiring circuits, will allow much deeper insight into normal and abnormal brain activity.

Keep Quiet If You Know What's Good For You

A pall of groupthink has fallen over the nation, and outspoken dissent has taken on the distinct odour of hazard. We know where this trend is heading, because we have watched it developing over the past decade or more in the climate science community.

Dr. Joanne Simpson [said recently] “Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly….As a scientist I remain skeptical...The main basis of the claim that man’s release of greenhouse gases is the cause of the warming is based almost entirely upon climate models.

...Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden notes, “Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined.”

Decades ago Tolstoi provided another explanation for failing to acknowledge the growing evidence. “I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.” _CFP _ via _ Icecap

When "the fix is in," it can be wiser to simply stand back and shut up. Well, just as in climatology, the fix is in politically and socially in America, where dissent will make you stand out like a sore thumb. Getting tenure, getting that contract, getting hired or just keeping your job has just become a bit trickier. Political correctness has just leapt out of the universities and media centers into the mainstream of American life and commerce.

This faux societal consensus is largely media - driven, and will last as long as nothing important comes along to disrupt it. The problem with this consensus attack on dissenting opinions is that it is suicidal, and works against economic survival. I confess that I am rather enjoying the moment. I am wondering how long this "feel good" forced euphoria can be sustained in the face of declining economic well being. A pep rally on the decks of the Titanic, as it were.

Those of you who may not feel like celebrating need to be stocking away durable wealth and learning how to live without a competent government. Worse than that, you will need to learn to protect yourself from an increasingly predatory government. And you will learn to keep quiet.

Waiting for Obama to Arrive and Reveal Himself

Apart from ambition, there is no "there" there. There are as many Obamas as there are interlocutors. He is a hollow man, I concluded, a Third World anthropologist studying us with engaged curiosity but complete emotional detachment. In this respect he is unpredictable. _Spengler

Some people simply never truly arrive. They project an image to make others believe they are there, but each believer is merely seeing an illusion conjured up by his own mind.

From the day Obama was elected to 9:30am Tokyo time on Monday morning, the S&P 500 index has lost 17% of its value, after absorbing Obama's proposed cabinet and hearing the gist of his economic stimulus plan. That can't be blamed on Bush. It counts as the "Obama crash". With the unprecedented power of his office, Obama inherits a commensurately high level of accountability. Unless he offers something radically different, the boomerang of expectations could flatten him faster and more thoroughly than the swift ascent of his star. People in power get blamed; people with absolute power get blamed absolutely. As the economy continues to deteriorate, there will be no one left standing to blame but Obama.

Ah, but Spengler, anything and everything can and will be blamed on Bush. The habit for doing so is too deeply engrained within what passes for brains, in the skulls of American media. Still, the credibility of the media has been in even steeper freefall than the value of the real estate in California.

He will make resonant speeches, hold frequent press conferences, consult friend and foe alike, and tread water while America's economy and strategic position continue to deteriorate. His entourage of one-trick wizards, as I called them in a recent commentary, will pick over the broken American economy for trophies to put into private equity funds... Without casting aspersions on anyone involved, the opportunity for self-dealing in a multi-trillion-dollar bailout-cum-recapitalization of the financial system exceeds the grandest dreams of Third World kleptocrats.

At a certain point he will have to take a decisive stand on something. And then we will learn who Obama is, and what he wants

Decisive? Obama? My dear Spengler, you really must be thinking of someone else who goes by that name. The reason Obama is unpredictable, as you say, is because frankly there is no Obama. The person inside the shell who was supposed to have developed, never coalesced. America has elected a shell as its leader.

Perhaps the shell popularly known as Obama, believed that being elected president would provide enough external energy of affirmation to conjure a self -- like Pinocchio becoming a "real boy", the android Mr. Data becoming a human, or Sally Field becoming a "real actress" because "you really like me!" No such luck.

So America is left waiting for Obama. Will he ever arrive? I hope you brought enough sandwiches to share, and perhaps a little wine. Make yourself comfortable.

Jutht Thit On It, Athole!

If only we could train our dogs to carry their own composting toilets! But this invention by industrial designer Virginia Gardiner called the Gardiner CH4 is meant for people. Certainly for times when one cannot find a public toilet, such carry-along potties might come in handy. Preferably with a fold-up curtain to fend off the curious, and a can of deodorant spray. ;-)

After the user does his or her business, a mechanical “flush” drops the package into a lining-wrapped sealed container. Like rolling luggage, the person trucks the container to a community biodigester unit, which composts the waste to produce methane gas. _PopSci

Hence the name, "CH4", methane. Such a contraption would have been quite the thing in DC the last few days, with millions of atholes milling about--particularly media atholes. How could anyone object to anything so "green"?

Rite of Passage College: Where Adolescents Go To Binge, Fornicate, and Get an Indoctrination

College has become a rite of passage for adolescents, but in preparation for what? Ritual binge drinking has become not only a rite, but a right. The most worrisome thing about sex on campus is becoming: "where to do it?" Colleges are spending more time and resources assuring students are indoctrinated into political correctness, than in helping students learn to think and learn for themselves.

Parents contemplating mortgaging their lives to send an adolescent to university might think long and hard about whether an 18 year old has a mature enough frontal cortex to deal with the institutional and peer pressure that will be pushing his mind toward mediocrity and conformity on campus. A better way of showing your child that you love them might be to prepare them better to face the world on their own terms, rather than throwing them to the wolves -- albeit at ruinous expense to your own finances. If a parent makes sure that a child's formative years are well-spent, by the time the child is 18, he should have the skills to create his own path.

Many quality schools offer online degrees, but most youngsters will not need to be in big hurries to get a degree. Al Fin has posted links to MIT's Open Courseware project, and other great online educational opportunities. Here is another good link to quality online educational materials: Lecture Fox. Lecture Fox includes MIT lectures along with lectures from many other fine universities on multiple continents.

Government schools have become taxpayer-funded babysitting institutions, so it is up to parents to expose their children's minds to the concepts that will allow them to be successful in tomorrow's world. If you are not already familiar with MERLOT, you should take a good look. Also check out Textbook Revolution for free online source materials for advanced independent classwork.

The number of online resources to facilitate home education for learners of all ages is multiplying beyond the ability of websites to keep up. But we will continue to try to update this information.

Rites of passage are meant to be initiations into a person's future as an adult. Today's colleges are instead initiations into a perpetual mindless adolescence and lobotomised dependency on authority. A large part of society's cluelessness in the face of modern economic problems can be traced to the academic lobotomising of students that has gone on in universities since roughly the late 1970s.

There is nothing wrong with sex when the participants understand what is happening and know what they are doing. There is nothing wrong with alcohol or occasional experimentation with recreational drugs if those involved know how to handle themselves, and know when to stop and "sleep it off" without endangering others. There is nothing wrong with professors presenting a point of view, as long as students are also exposed objectively to competing points of view, and are not penalised for expressing viewpoints that clash with those of the professors.

There is one good thing that universities provide besides good training in technical and professional areas: the opportunity for students to network with future colleagues and associates, and to begin creating a networking community for their futures. It is possible to create something similar online, but face to face contact is extremely valuable. Virtual reality and telepresence, in the future, will help.

More later.

Obama's Hyper-Inflationary Gotterdammerung

Obama himself is incredibly insubstantial in terms of knowledge, experience, and competence. He can best be viewed as a potent symbol and flashpoint for multiple dynamic and powerful social, political, ideological, cultural, and economic forces on the national and international levels. As a figurehead and facade, therefore, Obama is quite effective. It is only when wise and competent action is called for, that figureheads begin to show their core inadequacy.

Most members of the general and voting public have a caricatured view of how the world works and what is involved in administering a gigantic national phenomenon like the 21st century US. For many younger and less intelligent voters, a symbolic figurehead may seem the appropriate type of person to serve as head of state. But in the absence of decisive and informed decision-making from the top of the hierarchy, a multitude of competing bureaucratic kingpins will create an unholy cacophony of governmental destruction.

The current credit crunch and deflationary cycle we are experiencing can be written off to a number of factors, many of which were described by Kondratieff and others (via Dennis Mangan). But whether a timely recovery from this long-expected deflation will occur depends largely on economic decisions that will be made by the incoming Obama reich.

Here are a few of the shoes yet to drop:

1) Commercial Real Estate is going to face the same challenges that the residential housing market went through and continues to go through - except it will be worse. This shoe has implications for banks and insurance companies as well as the commercial real estate developers, both public and private.

2) There will be at least one automobile manufacturer (GM) bankruptcy by early spring. If this shoe drops, a second automobile bankruptcy (Chrysler) should follow shortly thereafter. And, a European automobile manufacturer could also go into Administration as well.

3) Corporate pension plans will show a big problem. Specifically, most, if not all, corporate pension funds are significantly underfunded and will require companies to shore up those pensions using up vitally needed cash.

4) Private Equity will suffer severely as funding continues to be very difficult and operations of the businesses will be impacted by the recession and will require capital. In addition, the IPO market will provide no relief for P/E to monetize investments and exit businesses.

5) Hedge Funds will continue to face redemptions and underwhelming performance. This will continue to pressure the markets and reduce liquidity. It will also impact the brokerage industry.

6) Municipalities all across the country will face huge budget deficits and will be forced to cut services and raise taxes. A major municipal default will occur before year end.

7) More small and mid-sized bank failures will occur...these will be the flip flops of the shoe storm.

8) The housing depression will continue as prices continue to fall and demand for homes does not materialize even with all the government programs being put forth. Housing inventory will rise to historic levels. at least one major homebuilder will go bankrupt.

9) There will be at least one, more likely many, major retail bankrupcty and at least one major commercial retail landlord, REIT, will go bankrupt.

10) Warren Buffets Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) will face the slings and arrows of the ongoing economic weakness and financial crisis. The stock will be cut down to size - maybe $50,000/share or so. Having just won the CEO of the Year award for 2008, which he probably deserved many years ago, it would only be fit for the company to show its vulnerabilities, which believe it or not it has, and succumb to the forces that have impacted every company in every business that Berkshire Hathaway owns or operates. _SeekingAlpha

I don't know about Buffet's company being re-valued, but I wouldn't be surprised. I don't really care. There are worse problems on the backburner. Bubbles within bubbles, threatening to burst.

The Obama phenomenon is clearly a hyper-inflated bubble, aided by Oprah and the national and international news and entertainment media. But the Obama bubble is riding on a much more ominous bubble, the bubble of the US Treasury. The deflationary risk posed by the impending bursting of the latter bubble puts all of the plans of the Obama / Pelosi monetary hyper-inflationary plans at risk. There is no simple formula for balancing catastrophic deflationary processes with deranged hyper-inflationary budgetary policies.

Obama and Pelosi appear to favour the hyper-inflationary approach of recovering from a recession, credit crunch, and de-leveraging of the financial system. They are in the company of a large number of academic, governmental, media and think tank economists in promoting a huge injection of liquidity into the the monetary system. It is an opportunity to spend into the trillions, that they have been waiting for all their lives. They simply cannot bring themselves to walk away. They believe they have Keynes on their side.

For Al Fin readers who want to have some sort of wealth at the end of this government-amplified and prolonged destructive process, think outside of normal investments. Some businesses will do very well if they are not nationalised or otherwise confiscated, hamstrung by regulations, or taxed to death by increasingly desperate governments at the local, state, and national levels. More on those businesses later.

Think about the various systems of barter and off the books trade that may be available. Think about precious metals in various forms. Think about necessities for you, for your neighbors, for society at large. Consider the cascading dynamics of failure as they will play out in your community. Remember, we are a few generations away from the tough people who survived the 1930's Keynes/Roosevelt-prolonged depression. People are much softer now, less competent in basic skills, and far more dependent on governments for even simple things, and soon to become even more dependent on governments under Obama / Pelosi.

But America in 2008 was not the America of 1930. There was never any danger of mass runs on the banks. The vast majority of Americans are of the opinion, rightly in my view, that the fed would not allow the banking system to collapse, an opinion that Bernanke's monetary policy has strongly reinforced. The danger is that by flooding the system with money, Bernanke will trigger a wave of inflation. Considering his unwavering devotion to the Keynesian faith, I think this is a highly likely outcome. To top it off, the crisis was the outcome of Keynesian policies that have given Obama the excuse to massively increase government spending. I think the results are going to be pretty ugly. _SeekingAlpha

This is not climate catastrophe, although if the world cools as recent data suggests it might, climate will make things worse. This is not peak oil, although under Obama / Pelosi, "political peak oil" is highly likely. This is not some obscure Mayan prophecy or other hocus pocus. It is the combination of incompetent people ( who happen to possess the hubris of deities) in places of power, with influence over a cyclic economic process that requires a deft yet delicate hand at the wheel.

Be prepared.

Terrafugia Transition: Virgin Flight in 1 Month

The Terrafugia Transition flying automobile is scheduled for initial flight testing in February of this year -- next month.

Carl Dietrich, who runs the Massachusetts-based Terrafugia, said: “This is the first really integrated design where the wings fold up automatically and all the parts are in one vehicle.”...The Transition...is powered by the same 100bhp engine on the ground and in the air.

Terrafugia claims it will be able to fly up to 500 miles on a single tank of petrol at a cruising speed of 115mph. Up to now, however, it has been tested only on roads at up to 90mph.

Dietrich said he had already received 40 orders, despite an expected retail price of $200,000 (£132,000). _Times

This design has a good chance of being successful. The wing folding and unfolding will need to be foolproof, and driving visibility cannot be obstructed by airfoils. The engine must be of highest quality and highly reliable.

Al Fin's requirements for a full function vehicle remain the same: it must be able to fly above the weather, cruise on a water surface, travel submerged like a submarine, move swiftly over highways or all off-road terrain. It should be able to land on either water or firmer surfaces including sand, salt flat, snow, and ice. And the vehicle should provide for comfortable overnighting in virtually any climate. Is that really asking for so much?

MIT Open Courseware for High School Students

North American schools are failing to provide society with the number and type of engineers, scientists, and computer scientists that society needs, to move forward. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Open Courseware program has made course materials from MIT widely available without charge via the internet. MIT now offers a special program for high school students called Highlights for High School, which provides precocious high school students with advanced science and engineering coursework. Exposing young students to introductory college level courses in science, engineering, and computer science will open their minds to the possibilities of careers in those fields.

If you are a high school science, math, or computer studies teacher, you may want to visit the MIT OCW site to refresh your own knowledge before attempting to help guide your students through the fascinating world the MIT programs will open for them.

There is much available at MIT OCW for those who are beyond high school, but considering going into the fields of science, engineering, or computer science. If you have been out of school for a while, start with the introductory courses then go on from there. You, too, can obtain an MIT education, from the safe and convenient location of your choice.

MIT was a frontrunner in the movement of placing university course materials on the web, but other universities are beginning to follow. Comptetition should soon make your choices far more numerous. MIT offers knowledge, for free. Other universities may offer knowledge for a fee, but will also grant university credit via extension programs.

If knowledge is power, then this trend represents power to the people. It is time for people to start looking at the ways they spend their free time and mental attention the same way they spend their meal and snack times. They can eat junk food or they can eat nutritious food that will keep them healthy and living longer. Similarly, they can feed their minds junk food, or they can feed their minds stimulating and challenging concepts that will keep their minds active and working clearly much longer.

Portrait of Competence: Sully Sullenberger

Chesley B. Sullenberger has logged over 19,000 hours piloting various aircraft. He graduated from the US Air Force Academy in 1973 and flew nearly 7 years as an Air Force pilot, mainly in the F4 Phantom fighter, leaving the service as a Captain. During his Air Force years he also acquired two masters degrees, one from Purdue in Industrial Psychology and one from the University of Northern Colorado in Public Administration.

After leaving the Air Force, Sullenberger went to work as an airline pilot for US Airways, where he has worked since 1980. He has developed safety protocols for airline safety, helped the US NTSB investigate airline accidents, and runs a safety consulting firm.

From a Time Magazine 2 Minute Biography of US Airways Flight 1549 Pilot Chesley Sullenberger

58 year old pilot Sullenberger was not expecting to land in the Hudson River that day, he did not make a practise of it. But fate decided to cripple the engines on Sully's airbus (150 passengers, 5 crew) minutes after takeoff. Only five minutes separated the sudden disabling of the planes engines from the successful landing in the Hudson.

Sullenberger's moment of deliberate thought probably went something like this: He needed to make a decision about where to land. He had to carefully weigh the risk of not being able to make the Teterboro airport against the risk of landing in freezing water. The decision required him to weigh numerous variables. How quickly was he losing altitude? Could he clear the George Washington Bridge? Would he be able to steer the plane without thrust? He probably had only a few seconds to consider all this information, but Sullenberger wisely realized that the Hudson was his best option. _LAT

He was doing his job, and he did it without taking a poll, without leaning on advisors, without a teleprompter or an army of flacks running interference. It was all on his shoulders and -- with the help of his similarly experienced and competent co-pilot -- Sullenberger put the jetliner in the water exactly as necessary to maximise the safety of passengers and crew.

After the cabin crew led most of the passengers through the wing exits and onto the wings, Sullenberger went through the entire plane twice to make absolutely sure that no one was left onboard. He was last to leave the plane.

Competence like that doesn't come from being able to talk a good game, or from being able to charm people at a cocktail party or a political rally. Such competence is an everyday matter of fact routine in hundreds of different jobs, at most every airport, hospital, military base, EMS and Fire Dept., factory, power plant, school, construction site, etc. But it is rare for such competence to be celebrated by the news media or the public.

Here's to everyday, largely uncelebrated competence. It's there, waiting for when it will needed. But it took work to develop, and takes time and effort to maintain.

While society shines an adoring spotlight on celebrities, sports stars, and the chosen messiah du jour, remember that somewhere out there are genuinely competent people who are making your relatively affluent and pampered lives possible, mostly in spite of what the media stars are doing.

When you least expect it, the fecal matter will make contact with the rotating metal blades. You will want all the competence around you possible, when that happens.

In a superficial society like ours, how is it that we still have people like Chesley Sullenberger? If there are more such competent and conscientious people in the pipeline, where do they come from? Are they really as rare as they often seem?

Learning To Remember, Remembering to Learn

There is something of a conflict between learning something new, and remembering something old. Different parts of the brain are involved, and they tend to inhibit each other's activity (seen on fMRI) when the brain tries to engage both functions (learning and remembering) simultaneously. Researchers in the Netherlands and the US recently published an fMRI based study in PLOS Biology demonstrating this conflict, and the part of the frontal lobe that appears to mediate the conflict and maximise functionality of both learning and remembering.

Despite the encoding/retrieval competition, on several trials, all participants were actually able to both remember and learn. Follow-up fMRI analyses showed that these trials were accompanied by selective activity in the left mid-VLPFC (Figure 3C). A subsequent correlation analysis indicated a negative relationship showing that more activity in left mid-VLPFC was coupled with less encoding suppression. Together, these findings suggest a role for the left mid-VLPFC in resolving the competition between learning and remembering. Given that encoding and retrieval were forced to occur within a brief period of time, we propose that the role of left mid-VLPFC involves the facilitation of rapid switching between the encoding and retrieval processes.

A role of left mid-VLPFC in rapid memory switching fits well with evidence implicating this region in flexible behavior and cognitive control. Outside the domain of memory, several studies have linked left mid-VLPFC activity to situations requiring flexible switching between different task sets or rules. For example, a recent fMRI study showed that activity in left mid-VLPFC is linked to task-switching [20]. _PLOSBiology _ via _SD

It is often necessary to remember and learn virtually simultaneously.

Virtually all social interactions require the rapid exchange of new and old information. For instance, normal conversation requires that while listening to the new information another person is providing, we are already retrieving information in preparation of an appropriate reply.

....Future research should reveal the extent and practical implications of impairments in switching between learning and remembering in patients and older adults, and whether we can improve our switchboard through training. _SD

You would expect any lesion to the left ventral lateral pre-frontal cortex (VLPFC) to interfere with a person's ability to rapidly switch between learning and remembering modes. Since any type of active learning involves both new encoding of information and recall of previously encoded information, the left VLPFC appears to be critical to the knowledge acquisition -- as well as retrieval -- process. (the right VLPFC is involved in vigilance and implicated in anxiety disorders)

Cognitive control mechanisms permit memory to be accessed strategically, and so aid in bringing knowledge to mind that is relevant to current goals and actions. In this review, we consider the contribution of left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) to the cognitive control of memory. Reviewed evidence supports a two-process model of mnemonic control, supported by a double dissociation among rostral regions of left VLPFC. Specifically, anterior VLPFC (approximately BA 47; inferior frontal gyrus pars orbitalis) supports controlled access to stored conceptual representations, whereas mid-VLPFC (approximately BA 45; inferior frontal gyrus pars triangularis) supports a domain-general selection process that operates post-retrieval to resolve competition among active representations. We discuss the contribution of these control mechanisms across a range of mnemonic domains, including semantic retrieval, recollection of contextual details about past events, resolution of proactive interference in working memory, and task switching. _Neuropsychologia (review) 1,Oct2007

The authors of the recent PLOS article quoted at top admit that fMRI lacks the spatial resolution needed to achieve fine definition of brain activity involved in information encoding and retrieval. The rough outline achieved by the study will likely be useful in further experiments, nonetheless.

We need to know how to optimise learning materials for individual students, but we also need to know how to optimise information encoding for individuals, given the learning materials at hand. Maximising the use of a person's intelligence may involve special exercises for the VLPFC, even deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the VLPFC or associated regions of the brain.

Given the wide variety of brain exercise systems on the market currently, it will probably take time and experimentation to determine which systems most optimally train the parts of the frontal lobe that are most operative in learning.

The educational establishment is bogged down in labour union politics and other forms of inertial resistance to adaptating to the neuroscience of learning. A certain amount of conservatism is fine, if the current theories of pedagogy were based upon sound principles. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. This means that enlightened educators will need to work to improve teaching and learning methods in spite of and in opposition to the full weight of the government-supported and financed education establishment.

Khhaaann!!! No, Not that Khan! Khan Academy -- An Amazing Place for At-Home Learning at Any Age Anywhere on Earth

Khan Academy is a free online library of over 700 learning videos that make learning easy. This marvelous intutive-learning website is a labour of love from Salman Khan, investment professional and holder of multiple advanced degrees from Harvard and MIT.

Perfect for the homeschool student who is studying for the SAT, for the budding young engineer or scientist, or for anyone wanting to get better at math, physics, management, finance, banking, probability, pre-engineering etc. Example: have you been curious about Singapore Math? Khan Academy offers a series of videos to give you a good idea of what the program is all about.

Every homeschool parent should be aware of Khan Academy, as should anyone studying for the SAT or GMAT, or anyone who needs a better understanding of math, physics, probability or finance.

A Freezing Earth Eyes Nuclear Energy

Across the globe, more nations are starting to look at nuclear energy as a way to power industrial growth and to keep warm as the Earth cools. From Eastern Europe to Arabia to South and East Asia, most of the world is starting to reject the nuclear phobia so common in most of western Europe and North America.

Better nuclear fuels will be needed, and the competition for optimal reactor fuels is just beginning. There is enough Uranium to keep the world from freezing for a hundred years or more, but there is enough Thorium to keep the world going for at least a thousand years.

The nuclear phobic attitudes that are delaying the needed innovation and new development in nuclear power in EU nations and North America will be bypassed by the new generation of nuclear entrepreneurs, and the nuclear phobics are likely to get left out in the cold -- particularly if they are also carbon hysterics and climate catastrophe orthodoxers.

Another new approach involves making small “backyard” reactors. The most aggressive proponent is Santa Fe, N.M.-based Hyperion Power, which seeks to build hot-tub-size reactors that can generate 25 megawatts of electricity, or enough juice to power 20,000 homes.

The company is already negotiating with several entities for the sale of 200 reactors, each at a cost of about $30 million. The idea is to deliver power at a cost of less than 10 cents a kilowatt-hour to locations — say remote areas of Alaska, military installations or industrial locations in Canada’s tar sands — where it’s difficult to obtain conventional power, said John Deal, Hyperion’s chief executive officer.

Hyperion is still finishing its manufacturing design and hopes to obtain federal licensing from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other bodies within a few years. Deal expects to deliver the first units to customers in less than five years.

Much of the demand has come from overseas. The United States, where much antipathy remains toward nuclear energy despite public surveys showing falling opposition, will have to wait.

“Honestly,” Deal said, “right now, I’m not really interested in fighting American ignorance about nuclear power.” _Chron _ via _ Brian Wang

Under the new energy starvation reich of Obama / Pelosi, there will be precious little new energy development, with the threat of much old energy being shut down out of faux-environmental concerns -- carbon hysteria. A surfeit of governmental and non-governmental "environmental" lawyers will be in full control, and they intend to create a type of havoc for ordinary persons previously unknown.

How do you plan to stay warm as the planet cools?

Now This Is What I Call a .... a .... a .... Long Range Thorium Powered Vehicle

Go 100 years without having to re-fuel. Imagine how far you could go on one fill-up.

Created by Loren Kulesus, everything about the WTF has been created to last 100 years without maintenance. That's the reason for the element number ninety, thorium: to act as a nuclear fuel powering batteries that would power the car.

Elsewhere, every major system is redundant in case of a failure. And the wheels don't have individual tires - in fact, what's located at each corner is one combined unit made up of six individual wheels. That gives you 24 wheels in total, and each wheel has its own induction motor. Said Kulesus, "The vehicle would require the tires to be adjusted every five years, but no material would need to be added or subtracted." _Autoblog_via_EphemeralIsle

For the bonus round, list ten different ways to make this vehicle amphibious -- float like a boat, fly like a plane, submerge like a submarine, etc. Reminds me of the film "Repo Man." Uh, officer, I really don't think you want to look in there . . .

...But the Military is the Only Branch of the US Government that Even Half-Way Functions

Over the years, I have heard one ambassador after another say, “I had to turn to the military because they are the only people who can get anything done.” If you give the U.S. military an order, something usually happens. It may happen late, clumsily, and expensively, but still, something happens.

In contrast, with State and other agencies, most of the time nothing happens. That is true even when budgets are ample. Why? Because the internal culture of our civilian agencies is so rigid, bureaucratic, risk-averse and rule-bound that they cannot act.

Often, the people at the working level are quite talented. They want to do the assigned job. But the internal focus of their agency is so strong they cannot, at least without risking their careers. A single broken rule or bent regulation, undotted i or uncrossed t, and they quickly learn to follow the regs and forget about the product. So nothing happens. _Lind

In the coming Obamanation, we will see resources shifted from the military to various diplomatic and civilian operations on a grand scale. Much money will be spent -- in the trillions of dollars -- but very little will be accomplished.

Diplomats and lawyers are the face of the Brave New Government. These brave new bureaucrats will know how to spend money just as much as the admirals and generals do, but they will have no results to show. There will be no technological spinoffs from the diplomacy brigades, no disaster relief across the globe, no training of practical skills to supply core specialists to the civilian economy such as airline pilots, engineers, law enforcement officers, civil engineers, trauma surgeons . . . only an ever greater surfeit of lawyers -- the glommed curse of any society or economy.

The NY Times is enthusiastic about the coming reich of diplomacracy under Obama, and the apparent decline of the importance of the US military. Over at the NYT they are ready to give "soft power" a chance, the kind of soft power that has given the EU so much leverage with Putin's Russia.

In a front-page story on December 1, “A Handpicked Team for a Foreign Policy Shift” by David Sanger, the Times reported that the new administration’s key national security policy appointees

were selected in large part because they have embraced a sweeping shift of resources in the national security arena.

The shift, which would come partly out of the military’s huge budget, would create a greatly expanded corps of diplomats and aid workers that, in the vision of the coming Obama administration, would be engaged in projects around the world aimed at preventing conflicts and rebuilding failed states.

Whether they can make the change…”will be the great foreign policy experiment of the Obama presidency,” one of his senior advisors said recently. _NYT _ via _Lind

Wonderful. As long as the wizards at the NYT are in favour of Obama's strategy, we have nothing to worry about.

A society is like a building, it must be built of strong stuff. Modern western societies are increasingly being built of "soft stuff", preferring the "soft power" approach to a world where soft power has never been effective without an indomitable strong power backing. Obama has ridden a wave of acclaim from Chicago to DC, and no one could blame him for beginning to believe his own press. Most of the western world half believes it.

But in the real world where facades crumble and apparently strong nations fail from internal, unseen rot, press releases and propaganda can only go so far. Up to this point, there has been no credible sign that Obama is made of anything stronger than a whimsical and fantastical narcissism. If there is any there, there -- anything beyond facade -- now would be a good time to start displaying it.

H/T Fabius Maximus

Stock Market Down, STD Rates in US Blacks Up, Especially Women and Babies How Can Obama Help The Lives of Millions of Blacks?

It is not enough that the illegitimacy rate among US blacks hovers around 70%, dooming millions of children to a lifetime of poverty or crime. Now black women and unborn black children are suffering from an increase in congenital sexually transmitted diseases -- including chlamydia and syphilis. Needless to say, HIV often piggybacks along with STD infections such as syphilis, and black Americans have the highest rates of new HIV infections. What can the winner of last year's US presidential election offer to these millions of Americans, seemingly doomed by life's lottery to a lifetime of congenital disability?

The syphilis rate continued to rise in 2007, as it has since 2000, with 11,466 diagnoses reported, or 3.8 cases per 100,000 people. This marks a 15% increase from 2006 (Engel, Los Angeles Times, 1/14).

Black women ages 15 to 19 have the highest rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea. Gonorrhea rates for blacks overall were 19 times higher than for whites, according to the report. Blacks make up 12% of the U.S. population, but account for about 70% of gonorrhea cases and nearly 50% of chlamydia and syphilis cases, the report said (Reuters Health, 1/13). Minorities have been disproportionately affected by STIs in previous year reports, with American Indians Alaska Natives and Hispanics at a lesser extent, according to the Times. _Kaiser

This is not some senile researcher in Tuskegee innoculating black field workers with syphilis to follow the natural progression of the disease. Medical science already understands what happens when syphilis goes untreated: severe lifelong and potentially fatal effects, and for infants born with syphilis (60 to 80% of infants born to infected mothers), a large number of problems some of which last a lifetime or can cause an early death.

Black Americans have better economic opportunities than blacks in most parts of the world. Black Americans have an average IQ of 85 -- 15 points higher than the average IQ in Sub Saharan Africa. Consequently, achievement of Black Americans should be higher than for Blacks in Africa, and it is. But what is the source for the self-inflicted problems so abundant in the US Black community? Crime? Drugs? Single parent households? Rampant STD and HIV rates that pass on lifelong hardship to the next generation?

What is the new US President going to do to help these brand new citizens who start their lives with two strikes against them?

Probably nothing, or worse than nothing. Rather than beginning with the dysfunctional rot of learned helplessness within the Black community and attempting to teach self-efficacy, expect Obama to fall back on the tired old language of victimhood of his mentor Jeremiah Wright, and his close friend and author William Ayers. Obama will almost certainly fall into his self-appointed role as messiah, to rescue his people from "the man" and lead them to the promised land.

Expect more of the same old, same old. Except what used to be millions will be billions. What used to be billions will be trillions. Obama uses the language of progressive economics, after all.

When one needs competence, but all one has is flaming narcissism, it helps to be able to print money. Lots of money.

Living in a Modular World: The Modular University

At MIT, physics courses are abandoning the huge amphitheatre lectures, in favour of a modular, student-centered approach.

M.I.T. is not alone. Other universities are changing their ways, among them Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, North Carolina State University, the University of Maryland, the University of Colorado at Boulder and Harvard. In these institutions, physicists have been pioneering teaching methods drawn from research showing that most students learn fundamental concepts more successfully, and are better able to apply them, through interactive, collaborative, student-centered learning.

At a growing number of universities starting with Virginia Tech, the modular approach to teaching mathematics pre-requisites for engineers has caught on.

"A typical math emporium session consists of logging into a computer, then logging into the testing system to take a quiz or exam," said Terri Bourdon, the instructor who manages both the college algebra and trigonometry course and the differential calculus course. Many students also do their course work at the emporium. They log onto the computer and click the link for their course on the emporium homepage. Students can take practice quizzes to prepare for the graded quizzes, and Bourdon said "most of the questions that the emporium staff answers come from the practice quizzes."

A modular design for course work is ideal for much of physics, mathematics, computer science, and engineering -- areas where North American universities are underachieving in terms of graduates vs. need. Taking the student out of a large amphitheatre lecture environment and incorporating lesson materials into modules a student can pursue at his own pace, the brick and mortar university is slowly giving way to the de-centralised university.

Already, Harvard Extension is offering degree programs obtainable online by students anywhere in the circum-Terra environment. MIT has been placing a growing amount of course material online for years. Dozens of other top universities are likewise offering credit for courses and extension degrees over the internet and via other distance education approaches.

Theoretically, a student living on a lunar colony could obtain a Harvard degree without ever leaving the surface of the moon. Over time, the number of degrees obtainable will continue to increase. There is no reason that law schools could not offer accredited degree programs anywhere in the world, given adequate online law libraries. As lab methods are adapted for virtual reality, and realistic simulators are made more affordable for regional and local distribution, even dental and medical training will be made available to the most distant outposts of human habitation.

We need to stop thinking in terms of huge centralised institutions of education and government, and begin thinking in terms of modular, de-centralised methods of training and administration.

The US government is currently under the complete control of the obsolete hyper-centralists, the neo-Keynesian monolithologists who worship at the feet of the god of hyper-bureaucracy. The resulting decay, corruption, ruin, and hardship will be most memorable for decades, if not centuries. Government (and universities) should never have been allowed to grow so large or powerful. Time to begin the great dismantling and re-ordering, even if the early phases must fly mainly under the radar.

The above video illustrates how quickly a local or regional educational startup could build a "branch campus" which might contract with multiple universities or departments such as Yale Law, Harvard Medical, MIT, Stanford Engineering, U Dub Neuroscience, etc. A modest investment in infrastructure, telecom, VR equipment, and realistic simulation modules would allow a small investment group to finance a credible distance education center offering the best education available on any continent.

49,000 Sea Horses Will Graze the Wide Oceans

American Superconductor and Northrop Grumman have successfully tested a 49,000 hp (36.5 MW) superconducting electric motor at full power. The motor is built for naval ship propulsion, powered by a nuclear reactor capable of providing 36.5 MW of power. Don't try this at home, the cost of feed for 49,000 horses alone will bankrupt you.

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--American Superconductor Corporation (NASDAQ: AMSC), a leading energy technologies company, and Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) announced today at the Surface Navy Association’s 21st National Symposium the successful completion of full-power testing of the world’s first 36.5 megawatt (49,000 horsepower) high temperature superconductor (HTS) ship propulsion motor at the U.S. Navy’s Integrated Power System Land-Based Test Site in Philadelphia. This is the first successful full-power test of an electric propulsion motor sized for a large Navy combatant and, at 36.5 megawatts, doubled the Navy’s power rating test record.

This system was designed and built under a contract from the Office of Naval Research to demonstrate the efficacy of HTS motors as the primary propulsion technology for future Navy all-electric ships and submarines. Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) funded and led the successful testing of the motor.

Incorporating coils of HTS wire that are able to carry 150 times the power of similar-sized copper wire, the motor is less than half the size of conventional motors used on the first two DDG-1000 hulls and will reduce ship weight by nearly 200 metric tons. It will help make new ships more fuel-efficient and free up space for additional warfighting capability.

“The successful load test of our HTS motor marks the beginning of a new era in ship propulsion technology,” said Dan McGahn, senior vice president and general manager of AMSC Superconductors. “This motor provides the U.S. Navy with a truly transformational capability relative to size, stealth, endurance and survivability, providing our Navy with a clear performance advantage for years to come. We are grateful for the steadfast support from the Office of Naval Research, Naval Sea Systems Command and the Naval Surface Warfare Center.” _Source _ via _ NextBigFuture

The US Navy is the source for a great deal of important new technology, spinning off applications like NASA used to do when it was still devoted to space -- before being enslaved to the counter-factual climate orthodoxy of Gore, Obama, and Pelosi. Expect a similar downfall for all branches of the US military under the narcissist - in - chief, when instated.

Superconducting motors, generators, and transmission lines will eventually impact every part of modern society.

Adapted from a posting at Al Fin Energy

Would You Pay $4 Million For Sex With Her?

22 year old Natalie Dylan is pursuing a degree in Women's Studies. She is also auctioning off her virginity to the highest bidder. She got the idea from her sister, who paid for her own college degree with income from 3 weeks working as a prostitute.

She said she had had a lot of attention from a wide range of men, including "weirdos", "those who get really graphically sexual about what they want to do to me" and "lots of polite requests from rich businessmen".

Miss Dylan said she did not think it was particularly significant to be willing to sell your virginity and insisted that she was happy to undergo medical tests for any doubters.

She said: "I get some men who are obviously looking for a girlfriend but I try and make it clear that this is a one-night-only offer.

"I know that a lot of people will condemn me for this because it's so taboo but I really don't have a problem with that.

"My study is completely authentic in that I truly am auctioning my virginity but I am not being sold into this. I'm not being taken advantage of in any way.

"I think me and the person I do it with will both profit greatly from the deal."

She added: "It's shocking that men will pay so much for someone's virginity, which isn't even prized so highly anymore." _Telegraph

Speaking from personal experience, virgins take a lot of time to train properly. I recommend saving yourself time and work, by choosing someone more experienced. But if you happen to have a spare $4 million lying around, like the cut of Miss Dylan's jib, and want to help out a Woman's Studies student, go ahead. Just don't come crying to me if it ends up not being worth all the trouble.

H/T News Alert

Chinese Soot Invasion! US DOE Scientist Warn that Soot Causing Earlier Snowmelt

Scientists have long known that Chinese soot crosses the Pacific Ocean, and contributes to the melting of western North American mountain snow, glaciers, and even northern hemisphere sea ice.

Up to 75 percent of the soot hitting the Western USA is from China, potentially causing 30 percent of regional warming in the Western USA. It's also believed as sooty snowfall is deposited in the American Sierras and Rockies, the dirty snow actually causes earlier snow melts and glacier loss as a result of the increased heat absorption from soot-darkened snow and ice. _Source

A new study by the US DOE's Pacific NorthWest National Lab shows that this Chinese soot combined with local soot from diesel engines can be causing early snowmelt in the Cascades, Sierras, and Rocky Mountains, as well as reducing the snowfall amount -- with adverse consequences.

Overall, doubling the dimming of the snow did not lead to twice as high temperature changes -- it led to an approximate 50 percent increase in the snow surface temperature. The drop in snow accumulation, however, more than doubled in some areas. Snowpack over the central Rockies and southern Alberta, for example, dropped two to 50 millimeters over the mountains during late spring and early winter. The most drastic changes occurred in March, the model showed.

The team also found that soot decreased snow's brightness in two ways. About half of soot's effect came from its dark color. The other half came indirectly from reducing the size of the snowpack, exposing the underlying darker earth. _Eurekalert

This study utilised a computer model to estimate the temperature effects of soot accumulation on snowpack. Similar dynamics is at work on glaciers and sea ice.

Climatology has generally neglected the effect of soot on these phenomena, instead ascribing them to CO2 warming instead. Such errors not only expose much of the climatological mainstream as being sloppy and unscientific, they also send engineers off on wild goose chases, pursuing the wrong strategies to mitigate the effect.

Big Picture of Ocean Temperature Oscillations

This video from Bob Tisdale is an efficient introduction to his excellent guest article (part I) at Watts Up With That. If you have ever wanted to get to the bottom of "what drives global temperature patterns?", you will want to take a good look at the video, and read the article.

H/T Tom Nelson

Tisdale Part II

Feminists Prefer to Abort All Male Geniuses

At the same time that prenatal screening of genes and chromosomes is becoming more common, some parents are choosing abortion for a wider range of conditions.

Just as with Down's syndrome, cystic fibrosis or spina bifida, a mother-to-be could decide whether she can cope with the strain of bringing up a disabled child. With an autistic child, it may mean a lifetime of rejection - living with someone unlikely ever to fit into the family, who responds with blank incomprehension to affection, whose behaviour may be erratic and disturbing, whose condition is permanent. Autism, and its associated condition, Asperger's syndrome, can range from virtual incapacity at one end of the spectrum to the merely strange at the other. To bring up one autistic child is a challenge to the sanity of an entire family. To bring up two might destroy it. _Times

But there is a possibility that male genius and autism follow much the same -- if not identical -- pathway in early development. Famous geniuses from Einstein to Mozart have been posthumously diagnosed as autistic.

Some people with autism have amazed experts with their outstanding memories, mathematical skills or musical talent. Now scientists have found that the genes thought to cause autism may also confer mathematical, musical and other skills on people without the condition.

The finding has emerged from a study of autism among 378 Cambridge University students, which found the condition was up to seven times more common among mathematicians than students in other disciplines. It was also five times more common in the siblings of mathematicians.

...“It seems clear that genes play a significant role in the causes of autism and that those genes are also linked to certain intellectual skills.” _TimesOnline

For feminists, this conundrum presents an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. The more widely abortion can be applied to everyday life in the name of medical necessity, the less likely that socially conservative politicians can ever make abortion illegal or difficult to obtain. In addition, the widespread abortion of males with Asperger's or borderline Asperger's, would conceivably reduce the number of male geniuses and high math functioning males. A drastic reduction of male geniuses would narrow the gender gap, long a top goal of feminist ideologues, politicians, and academics.

Under a nationalised single-payer system of healthcare financing, abortion for specific genetic, chromosomal, or other congenital conditions might even become mandatory -- as a means of controlling costs.

The origin of genius in humans, as well as the preponderance of males within the ranks of geniuses, have never been well explained scientifically. Professor of Psychiatry at Trinity College, Dublin, Michael Fitzgerald, believes that "the genes for autism/Asperger’s, and creativity are essentially the same." That remains to be proven, but as a hypothesis it needs to be clarified and tested.

Large areas of higher education in North America have been rendered dysfunctional by militant feminist dogma in the academy. Performing overpriced academic lobotomies on the adolescents and young adults of North America is one thing. Let's make sure it doesn't go further than that.

Sun Goes on Strike! Ice Age Imminent?

Contrary to NASA predictions, the number of sunspots appearing in the year 2008 were the second lowest number since the year 1900. As solar scientists at NASA ponder where they went wrong in failing to foresee the flagging solar cycle 24, more far reaching scientists see their predictions of slowing solar cycles vindicated (PDF).

Russian solar scientists have been predicting an imminent ice age for a few years now. A recent story in Pravda provides some background:

The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science. Many sources of data which provide our knowledge base of long-term climate change indicate that the warm, twelve thousand year-long Holocene period will rather soon be coming to an end, and then the earth will return to Ice Age conditions for the next 100,000 years....

The main flaw in the AGW theory is that its proponents focus on evidence from only the past one thousand years at most, while ignoring the evidence from the past million years -- evidence which is essential for a true understanding of climatology. The data from paleoclimatology provides us with an alternative and more credible explanation for the recent global temperature spike, based on the natural cycle of Ice Age maximums and interglacials....

The reason that global CO2 levels rise and fall in response to the global temperature is because cold water is capable of retaining more CO2 than warm water. That is why carbonated beverages loose their carbonation, or CO2, when stored in a warm environment. We store our carbonated soft drinks, wine, and beer in a cool place to prevent them from loosing their ‘fizz’, which is a feature of their carbonation, or CO2 content. The earth is currently warming as a result of the natural Ice Age cycle, and as the oceans get warmer, they release increasing amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Because the release of CO2 by the warming oceans lags behind the changes in the earth’s temperature, we should expect to see global CO2 levels continue to rise for another eight hundred years after the end of the earth’s current Interglacial warm period. We should already be eight hundred years into the coming Ice Age before global CO2 levels begin to drop in response to the increased chilling of the world’s oceans. _Pravda

Global warming celebrities such as Gore, Hansen, Jones, Mann, etc. have ridden a tsunami of credulous political and media acclaim, giving them fame, fortune, or at least job security. These "legends in their own minds" will not take kindly to a cooling climate. So they must deny, deny, deny, for as long as they can.

From Watts Up With That, we find yet another reason for global cooling: accumulating sea ice around Antarctica. Due to its lower latitudes, Antarctic sea ice has a much greater effect on Earth's energy balance than does Arctic sea ice. Consequently, the excessive attention played to Arctic sea ice extent has distracted world attention from the much more relevant Antarctic sea ice extent.

How long can we continue to tolerate this media misdirection, a clear abdication of media's role to inform the public of the facts. As long as mainstream media -- including reporting by science journals such as Science and Nature, and science news websites such as Scientific American, Sciencedaily, and Physorg.com -- continue to function as little more than cheering squads for the climate orthodoxy, rather than as honest reporters of the best science data, intelligent searchers will be forced to go out of the mainstream. Fortunately, they can easily find honest reporters of the data such as Roger Pielke Sr., Steve McIntyre, Anthony Watts, Roy Spencer, Matt Briggs, and the many others who have donated their own time and resources to provide a fuller and more objective view of the many unresolved issues in climate.

The new Obama / Pelosi reich wants to waste trillions of taxpayer dollars chasing after the global warming phantom. They want to starve the US of vital energy resources and place the US at the mercy of foreign oil suppliers, in the same way that Europe is at the mercy of Russia and Iran. These deranged dilettantes want to put the US in precisely the wrong posture to be ready for anything that an unpredictable climate sends our way.

It was moronic for American voters to place these fools in such a position of power. Forget about that now. Is it too late for enough Americans to wake out of their deep slumber of psychological neoteny, academic lobotomy, and programmed attitudinal obsolescence, in order to prevent a catastrophe of global proportions? We may soon see.

More on solar cycles here and here.

H/T Tom Nelson

The Fallout Could Cover Half the United States . . . .

A drop in global temperatures of just a few degrees may not sound catastrophic but would have far-reaching consequences. The 1883 eruption of the Indonesian volcano Krakatau sparked a ten-year period of global crop failures. And compared to the Yellowstone super volcano, Krakatau is what a tea-warmer is to a blast furnace. _radionetherlands

Scientists are wondering whether the Yellowstone super volcano is preparing to erupt.

The super volcano in Yellowstone Park, which includes parts of the states of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, is making its presence felt. On New Year's Day, the situation was so alarming that geologists called for an immediate evacuation of an area within a radius of 325 kilometres around the national park. At a rate of four tremors per hour, an eruption appeared imminent. The tremors have subsided slightly since 1 January, but it would appear the beast is slowly coming awake. _radionetherlands

How bad would it be?

The eruption of pent-up energy will cover half the United States in ash, in some places up to 3 feet (1 meter) deep. Earth will be plunged into a perpetual winter that would last years. Some plant and animal species will disappear forever.

Even humans could be pushed to the edge of extinction. Anthropologists suggest it won't be the first time. Space

Video courtesy of Watts Up With That

Planes would fall from the sky, automobiles would stall, people would choke on the ash. Skies would go dark, croplands would die, and a cold chill would settle over the entire planet for years or longer. It has happened before -- the Yellowstone super volcano -- and it will happen again, someday. Even now, murmurs of future catastrophe emanate from deep under Yellowstone.

Potential for supervolcano eruptions exist at several spots around the globe. What are you doing to prepare?

As Europe Freezes, Who Will Fight Back Against Carbon Hysteria and Nuclear Phobia?

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Europe suffers from both a shortage of energy and a fear of energy. As Europeans freeze from the lack of ability to heat homes and businesses, the underlying fear that keeps them frozen has not been addressed. Until now.

The dispute between Russia and Ukraine became dramatic after Russian gas company Gazprom halted gas deliveries to Ukraine in early January as it failed to agree on new prices with the country.

As a result, several EU states have been left without gas. Countries affected by the shortage of Russian gas have been using gas from their storage tanks and are leading talks about raising gas supplies via different routes.

...The solution to Europe's energy problems is the rise of nuclear energy, President Václav Klaus said at news conference Thursday after meeting his Polish counterpart Lech Kaczynski. _PragueMonitor

In Slovakia, government leaders are contemplating re-starting a nuclear power reactor that had been recently shut down to comply with rules of EU membership. Imagine: In order to belong to the EU a country has to place itself at the mercy of foreign energy suppliers. Unbelievable!

Much of Europe is dependent upon natural gas for energy and heat. Italian officials are beginning to state publicly that Italy must develop nuclear energy as "the only solution" to Italy's energy import problem. Other EU nations are belatedly arriving at similar conclusions. Unfortunately, the EU itself, in Brussels, remains mired in both carbon hysteria and nuclear phobia. Fear of energy. In the US, state governments may be in for a similar fight for energy against the growing carbon hysteria and various energy phobias of the incoming Obama administration.

Cold winters have a way of exposing the absurdity of bureaucratic groupthink. Reality bites, as they say.

Serbs, traditional allies of Moscow, on burned a Russian flag in the town of Kragujevac during angry protests at heating shortages, affecting up to 170,000 homes, caused by the continuing gas crisis.

In Bulgaria, 64 schools across the country remained closed and at least 30,000 households remained without any heating.

Over 70,000 households in the snow-blanketed Bosnian capital of Sarajevo remained without heating for a fourth day due to the halt in Russian supplies. Telegraph

Nuclear power makes sense for Europe. Unlike wind and solar, nuclear is a baseline power technology. As new generations of safer and more economical reactors come on-line, the residual nuclear phobias dating back to Chernobyl and beyond, will be forgotten.

IGCC coal gasification in combined heat and power (CHP) installations that incorporate combined cycle (gas turbines and steam turbines) provide a non-polluting form of coal utilisation with high versatility. Fear of coal within the EU and the incoming Obama administration is set to cause undue hardship upon the people who fall within the jurisdictions of those misinformed and largely incompetent government entities.

As Europe and later much of the developed world freezes, who will fight back against the hysterics and phobics who have seized control? Who will speak out against these destructive and fearful fools who are supported by the news media at large? It sounds like a job for "new media."

Respected Technology Blogger / Journalist Roland Piquepaille Dies Suddenly in Paris of Gastrointestinal Virus

Roland Piquepaille was a columnist for ZD Net, and ran his own technology blog as well. His work was of the highest quality, and his contribution will be missed.

Roland passed away Monday in Paris. He was hit with a digestive virus that lead to a high fever and health complications beyond that. Suzanne said that the doctors are still trying to quantify how Roland got the virus and the exact details.

....There will be a ceremony held on Monday. Rest in peace Roland, we’ll miss you. Suzanne said that Roland had a few posts in the pipeline and wanted them published. _ZDNet _ via _NextbigFuture

Synthetic HDL Cholesterol Sponge: Nanotechnology Making Cholesterol Safer

The nano-synthesis of biologically active molecules has a huge future in biomedicine. One example of such a synthetic biomolecule is synthetic HDL cholesterol, recently synthesised by Northwestern University scientists.

The researchers successfully designed synthetic HDL and show that their nanotechnology version is capable of irreversibly binding cholesterol. The synthetic HDL, based on gold nanoparticles, is similar in size to HDL and mimics HDL’s general surface composition. The study is published online by the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS).

“We have designed and built a cholesterol sponge. The synthetic HDL features the basics of what a great cholesterol drug should be,” said Chad A. Mirkin, George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, professor of medicine and professor of materials science and engineering. Mirkin and Shad Thaxton, M.D., assistant professor of urology in Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, led the study. _Nanowerk

A previous use of synthetic HDL cholesterol is as a tracer molecule, to identify atherosclerotic plaque inside arterial lining. Tagging the synthetic HDL with likely MRI contrast agents such as gadolinium allowed for the rapid location and size estimate of cholesterol plaques.

"It's like a smart bomb that goes directly to the plaque," says Fayad. "We were able to see plaque in high contrast."

In their images, the team also detected accumulations of macrophages--killer cells that invade areas of injury or inflammation such as plaque buildup. These macrophages secrete enzymes that Fayad says "eat up" plaque, making it unstable and more likely to rupture, which in turn could lead to heart attacks. Being able to detect these cells early on could help identify people at high risk of heart disease, as well as help develop treatments and lifestyle changes before their condition worsens. _Medgadget

More on using nano-synthetic HDL to aid in diagnostic testing for atherosclerosis here.

Not Just Your Imagination, It Really Is Getting Cold

Image from Watts Up With That

Data from the NCDC shows a downward trend in North American temperatures over the past ten years. Also see here for another decadal decline in temperatures. Reasons for this apparent decline vary from sunspot cycles to ocean oscillations to volcanic eruptions and outright denial. According to a study published in the January 8 issue of Nature, part of the reason for the recent global cooling may be too small to see without a microscope.Diatoms are microscopic oceanic plankton which every year remove billions of tons of CO2 from the atmosphere. The history of plankton is being re-written by scientists at this very moment, and it is quite likely that the repercussions of new plankton research will be quite significant.

The evolutionary history of diatoms -- abundant oceanic plankton that remove billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the air each year -- needs to be rewritten, according to a new Cornell study. The findings suggest that after a sudden rise in species numbers, diatoms abruptly declined about 33 million years ago -- trends that coincided with severe global cooling.

..."Why diatom diversity peaked for 4 to 5 million years and then dropped is a big mystery," Rabosky said. "But it corresponds with a period when the global climate swung from hothouse to icehouse. It's tempting to speculate that these tiny plankton, by taking carbon dioxide out of the air, might have helped trigger the most severe global cooling event in the past 100 million years." _CornellChronicle

The new, re-written evolutionary history of diatoms may indeed shine an important light on our present climate. But perhaps the lesson to be taken from the study is that diatoms thrive in warmer water. As climate and the oceans grow colder, diatoms are unable to thrive as well and reproduce as quickly. Correlation does not equal causation.

Diatoms are very important in the overall carbon cycle, as are a number of other carbon-fixing oceanic species. Apocalyptic predictions of future ocean acidification fail to properly take into account the oceans' enormous capacity for removing and fixing atmospheric carbon in permanent or semi-permanent form. Such basic errors in reasoning, when combined with an irrational faith in simplistic climate models, lays the foundation for an incredibly unscientific quasi-religious faith in catastrophic anthropogenic global warming -- CAGW. The religious orthodoxy of manmade warming catastrophe is in the process of destroying the economic infrastructure of Autralia and the EU, and under the narcissist-elect Obama threatens to destroy the economic infrastructure of the US.

Climate science itself has become co-opted by political influences, such as the United Nations, the European Union, various leftist political fronts for environmental causes, and deranged activists such as Al Gore. Science has very little to do with media commentary on the climate. But science is still lurking in the background, and threatens a severe backlash against the political co-opters of climatology.

So before you buy into the climate fantasies of Gore, Hansen, and Obama, consider educating yourself in the evolutionary history of the humble diatom. Particularly for Obama voters, such self-education could prevent them from making themselves "twice the fool."

Smelling Like Sex: Pheromones and Letting Go

Animals of all kinds react to pheromones -- sex attractant hormones -- so why not humans? Apparently they do. In a study at Rice University, women's brains lit up on fMRI scans when the women were allowed to sniff a sample of men's sex sweat. Sex sweat was collected from men while they were watching porn videos. Women's brains failed to react the same way when sniffing non-sex sweat -- sweat collected while men were working out.

Another study at the Cognitive Neuroimaging Laboratory at Monell Chemical Senses Center, determined that women who are in love tend to fixate on the smell of their lover, and lose the ability to distinguish the scents of other males.

The human sex interaction is clearly a non-rational dynamic. When a woman is swept up into a passionate state, she tends to let go of her inhibitory brain function, and passes into a state beyond good and evil, beyond rationality, beyond accountability. She lets go. How she feels the next morning, when her rational brain centers reassert themselves, may be quite different.

Men tend to wish to take control and dominate. When a dominating male interacts with a female who lets herself go, passion can reach its most profound levels. But there are always exceptions -- the dominatrix and the submissive male.

Generalisations are based upon common observations, but the diversity of natural inclinations in sexual desire is quite great. If an individual's sexual predilections lead him astray of society's traditions and mores, problems can easily arise, including criminal penalties which can be extremely harsh. Within Islam, for example, homosexuals are still stoned to death.

In the future, technology will allow for a wide range of sexual expression. Knowledge of an individual's drives and needs will allow the customisation of the full palette of sexual stimuli. There will be no reason for persons to risk potentially deadly sexual encounters when advanced methods of teledildonics, privacy screens, anonymity devices, and sexual surrogates in full sensory modes will allow sexually intense experiences adapted especially for specific individuals. Such experiences will naturally include the use of pheromones known to trigger the most desired sexual response for the client or companion.

Cross posted at Al Fin, You Sexy Thing!

Putin, Chavez, Ahmedinejad: Worried Tyrants Willing to Go to War to Drive Oil Prices Up

The oil tyrants of Russia, Iran, Venezuela, etc. grew popular on high energy prices -- while they lasted. Now that oil prices have grown a bit resistant to rising at every war and rumour of war, Putin, Chavez, Ahmedinejad and cronies are growing desperate! The bloody dictators had been counting on high oil prices to finance their global mischief-making.

How worried are they?

Russia fears a new ruble crisis.

Since August 2008, the Russian ruble overall has fallen 19 percent against the dollar — and not just because of the global credit crisis. The crisis coincided with two other major events: the Russo-Georgian war and plunging oil prices. Russia has seen massive amounts of investment flee because of the Russo-Georgian war. Russia also is looking at the possibility that in 2009 it could run its first budget deficit in a decade because of lower-than-expected oil prices — down 78 percent, to as low as $32 per barrel, from the July 2008 high of $147 per barrel.

Venezuela faces a troubled 2009.

Falling oil prices forced Venezuela to cut its 2009 budget and could put countries like Cuba and Nicaragua, both of which depend heavily on discounted oil from Venezuela to meet their daily energy needs, in serious peril in the months to come. Fellow beneficiary of Venezuelan benevolence Bolivia also could soon feel the ill effects of receiving less oil from Venezuelan state-run oil company PDVSA.

Iran is left high and dry by low oil prices. Ahmedinejad and the mullahs are gambling the future of Iran on bloody mischief-making and empire-building across the middle east, including financing and arming Hamas, Hezbollah, and Shia militias inside Iraq. Other Iranian funded terrorist groups inside Saudi Arabia and the other Persian Gulf oil states are also part of Iran's thrust to become the strongest power inside Islam.

Europe is growing disgusted at Russia for its high-handed use of natural gas supplies as a weapon. But they had to have known last summer that Russia's pre-meditated invasion of Georgia had deeper motivations than just "defending Ossetians." Russia is serious about being the energy bully/dictator of Europe's winter heat supplies. Europe has no spine, no huevos. It will bend over for Putin.

If Putin is able to bully half the developed world while energy prices are low, imagine how many he will be able to bully when energy prices rise again. That is why Putin and his bloody-handed friends are so eager to drive energy prices upward -- regardless of the price in human lives and international instability.

The question on everyone's mind: Will Obama play right into Putin's hands with his plans for cutting all US domestic production of energy? In the name of carbon hysteria and global warming orthodoxy, will Obama make the US even more vulnerable to the Putins, the Chavez's, the Ahmedinejads of the world? Wait and see.

It is certain that the bloody oil tyrants are willing to do whatever it takes to restore and maintain their whip hands. The Hamas / Hezbollah war against Israel is just the beginning, if they do not get their way. The next violence may be a bit closer to your neighborhood.

150 W/cm2? Energy from Waste Heat Revolution

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Most of the energy from combustion processes such as an automobile's engine, is lost as heat. It seems a lot of waste to pump or dig fuels from the ground, only to lose most of the energy to the atmosphere as waste heat. Consequently, around the world engineers, scientists, and technologists are scrambling to find better ways to re-capture the huge mass of energy that is going missing every year.

Thermoelectrics is a growing and revolutionary method of redeeming waste heat to electricity -- analogous to photovoltaics except converting heat to electron flow rather than light. Brian Westenhaus brings us up to date on Nextreme Thermal, a company at the forefront of efficient thermoelectric conversion.

The thermoelectric field is gathering momentum and increasing efficiency. Many manufacturers are attending to this technology, as it requires no moving parts so the durability and miniaturization prospects look quite good.

For many heat producing power generation kits the excess heat is a nuisance, expensive to dispense with and money simply lost into things like rivers, the atmosphere and simply radiated away warming anything nearby which can be even more expense. From huge power installations generating electricity to automobiles thermoelectric on to microelectronics, thermoelectric conversion should find welcoming places. In the U.S. and Europe automakers from GM to BMW express enthusiasm for the technology to add to the electric output and reduce fuel requirements.

...The breakthrough product seems to be the Thermal Copper Pillar Bump (CPB) design that has applications in electronics where the technology can be used to cool and recover heat back into power. A highly desired goal is application in PC data centers where the operating costs for power to cool the electronics exceeds the power to process the data.

How good have they managed to get? A temperature difference of 60ºC has been achieved across the 60 µm (0.06 mm) high Nextreme CPB by running an electrical current through it. The Nextreme CPB demonstrated maximum power pumping capabilities exceeding 150 W/cm2. When subjected to heat the Nextreme CPB has demonstrated the capability to generate up to 10 mW of power per bump.

150 W/cm2 . . . That seems like a lot of power from a differential of 60ºC. Things are coming along faster than I had expected. _NewEnergyandFuel

Here is another look at the growing field of thermoelectrics, from Brian Wang.

More efficient retrieval and use of waste heat amounts to an energy revolution in its own right. Consider it but one more important piece in the puzzle problem to provide abundant energy to the growing needs of the future.

Cross posted at Al Fin Energy

Is Demographics Destiny?

Yes, demographics, that relentless maker and breaker of civilizations. From the fall of the Roman and the Mayan empires to the Black Death to the colonization of the New World and the youth-driven revolutions of the 20th century, demographic trends have played a decisive role in precipitating many of the great invasions, political upheavals, migrations and environmental catastrophes of history. By the 2020s, an ominous new conjuncture of these trends will once again threaten massive disruption. _SacBee

It is difficult to predict anything, but particularly the future. Demographic change is one thing that lends itself to prediction more than many other types of change. I would like to use Israel as an example of the west, and the Kingdom of Hatred -- greater Arabia -- as an example of the demographic threat the west faces.

Demography..... offers the recipe for such a dissolution [of Israel]. The birth rates for Israeli Arabs are among the highest in the world, with 4 or 5 children per family (as opposed to the 2 or 3 children per family among Israeli Jews). _NYT

Within ten years, arabs will be the majority population between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. Within twenty years, arabs will be the majority even within tiny Israel proper. The writing is on the wall for Israel (and Europe). The question is how it will all unfold.

The Greater Middle East [ed: and soon Europe] hangs on a thread: it could either explode into direct warfare between Israel and Iran, or it could evolve for the better after the Teheran regime is undermined by public opinion, triggered at least initially by continued low oil prices......there are cataclysms to come, and the real battle for the soul of the region may be fought in Iran itself. Atlantic _

The western world is imploding. The vacuum created by low birthrates from Russia to Europe to Japan invites immigration of uneducated and essentially untrainable workers from areas of poverty and low IQ.

Meanwhile, with the demand for low-wage labor rising, immigration (assuming no rise over today's rate) will double the percentage of Muslims in France and triple it in Germany. By 2030, Amsterdam, Marseille, Birmingham and Cologne are likely to be majority Muslim.

In Europe, the demographic ebb tide will deepen the crisis of confidence reflected in such best-selling books as "France is Falling," by Nicolas Baverez; "Can Germany Be Saved?" by Hans-Werner Sinn; or "The Last Days of Europe," by Walter Laqueur.

The media in Europe are already rife with dolorous stories about the closing of schools and maternity wards, the abandonment of rural towns and the lawlessness of immigrant youths in large cities. A recent cover of Der Spiegel shows a baby hoisting 16 old Germans on a barbell with the caption: "The Last German — On the Way to an Old People's Republic." In Japan, the government half-seriously projects the date at which there will be only one Japanese citizen left alive. _SacBee

Watch what happens to Israel carefully, because Israel's turn is first, and Israel is the most vigilant and prepared of all western nations. Israel is determined to survive, but will that same determination evolve into a determination to die well instead of badly? The demographics is bad enough, but when such demographics is combined with the apocalyptic fanaticism of the Iranian suicide bomb regime, hope for favourable change is difficult to sustain.

First Israel, then Europe may be next in line. Do not underestimate the huge "moral lift" that the conquest of Israel will give to the worldwide Islamic supremacist tsunami. Who can Europe call on to help? The United Nations? Pardon me while I laugh at my own absurd joke. Perhaps Europe can appeal to multicultural principles, talk some reason face to face with the onslaught of fanatical demography?

Maybe Europe will attempt to bargain, to bribe leaders, to soften the jihadi resolve with the comforts of the affluent west? Yes, that is exactly what Europe has been attempting for decades, and it is not working out very well. A constant influx of fertile first cousin brides from the old country, and a social isolation of new immigrants, creates a psychological and ideological wall of isolation between Europe's past and its future.

Israel is struggling against demographic destiny. Europe lacks the will to struggle. Israel rages against the long night of fanaticism and the death of reason. Europe looks the other way and hopes the end will be quick.

There may be hope of a demographic resurgence in many parts of the world.

Many fast-modernizing countries where fertility has fallen very recently and very steeply will experience an ominous resurgence of youth in the 2020s. It's a law of demography that when a population boom is followed by a bust, it causes a ripple effect, with a gradually fading cycle of echo booms and busts. In the 2010s, a bust generation will be coming of age in much of Latin America, South Asia and the Muslim world. But by the 2020s, an echo boom will follow — dashing economic expectations, swelling the ranks of the unemployed and perhaps fueling political violence, ethnic strife and religious extremism.

These echo booms will be especially large in Pakistan and Iran. In Pakistan, the number of young people in the volatile 15- to 24-year-old age bracket will contract by 3 percent in the 2010s, then leap upward by 20 percent in the 2020s. In Iran, the youth boomerang will be even larger: minus 31 percent in the 2010s and plus 30 percent in the 2020s. These echo booms will be occurring in countries whose social fabric is already strained by rapid development. One teeters on the brink of chaos; the other aspires to regional hegemony. One already has nuclear weapons, and the other seems likely to obtain them. _SacBee

Great. An echo population boomerang in Pakistan and Iran? Just what we needed. More fanatical followers of the jihadi onslaught.

Which of the modern world empires will be positioned to challenge this tsunami of fanaticism and unreason? China is building its energy supplies with a vengeance, in apparent preparation for something of import. India is likewise trying, but it has its own demographic problems within and without its own borders.

The Anglosphere is currently under the sway of a sick and suicidal ideology of energy Luddism, of Dieoff.orgiasm. The Anglosphere is not preparing for the future, but is instead preparing to follow the fate of a sick and dying Europe. Despite a sick leadership, a large number of stubborn and curmudgeonly throwbacks to an earlier time of desperate survival still exist in pockets of the Anglosphere -- even in pockets of Europe. The board is still in play.

Sick, Dying Cultures of Europe, Japan, Russia

It is perfectly possible for entire peoples to live only for their own pleasure and feel nothing for their prospective obliteration. How else should we explain fertility rates in Europe and Japan at barely half of replacement? _Spengler

Europe, Japan, Russia. Modern cultures without a future. Russia is fading the fastest due to the lethal combination of high death rates with low birth rates. Europe and Japan have healthier economic prospects than Russia, but low birthrates doom them to ghost cultures, certain to have their lands overrun and occupied by others.

"The peoples of the world foresee a time when their land with its rivers and mountains still lies under Heaven as it does today, but other people dwell there; when their language is entombed in books, and their laws and customers have lost their living power." _Rosenzweig as quoted by Spengler

No amount of decadent excess, or of saber rattling will hold back the forces of demographics and history.

The Anglosphere (US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand), China, and India are three "empires" on one side of the future. Islamist supremacist globalist states are arrayed on the other. Where will Europe, Russia, and Japan align among the four supernational arrays? Europe and Russia are likely to be overrun by the Islamist strain, with the far east of Russia going to China. Pockets of resistance inside Europe may align with the Anglosphere.

Japan will likely align with China, and begin accepting Chinese immigrants, while maintaining trading ties with India and the Anglosphere. Africa stands to be parceled out yet again, to the great powers. Latin America may maintain some neutrality (Argentina, parts of Brazil, Uruguay), although parts may go to China, India, or the Islamic alliance. The Anglosphere may eventually grow strong threads into Central America, and as far into South America as Colombia or even Chile.

Nuclear weapons currently in Russia and Europe will be captured by Islamist groups and used against the various perceived enemies of the rising Caliphate. Wars will be fought for territory at the borders of the great empires. Thailand will be torn between the Chinese, Indian, and Islamic empires. Singapore will likewise be coveted by those three, while trying to maintain its ties to the Anglosphere.

Read Spengler's article linked above. Then take a long look at a map of the world. Puzzle it out. Which cultures will live, and which will die? How will the survivor's align themselves? The future is dynamic and unpredictable, but current social and demographic trends suggest some possible "chaotic attractor" scenarios.

Dump the Unions: Charter Schools Smoke Rest

Boston charter schools that operate independently of teachers' unions and other obstacles to quality education are outperforming traditional public schools. Charters are even outperforming the vaunted "pilot schools", which retain most of the unionised structure of conventional public schools. Union fat cats are furious, and Deval Patrick is secretly embarassed by this new reality that threatens his plans to suck up to the unions.

Charter schools were created as part of the 1993 Education Reform Act, as a way to develop new teaching strategies that could eventually be transferred to public schools. The approximately 60 schools operate under looser state regulations than traditional schools, have mostly nonunion teachers, and are run by independent boards that report directly to the state. They have been particularly popular in urban school districts among parents and students frustrated with traditional schools.

...Researchers at Harvard University and MIT, who conducted the study, said they do not know why a performance gap emerged, noting that the study was designed to merely uncover whether charter and pilot schools increased student achievement. _Boston.com

America's crumbling system of unionised education is destroying the future of millions of its children. It is past time to wake up and stand up against corrupt teachers' unions that are helping to bankrupt local governments and are killing the minds of children.

Changing Concepts of Car Design: BMW Gina Morphing Shape Automobile

Almost all modern automobiles have rigid metallic bodies covered with paint and clear coat. But what if your car's body could change its shape, depending upon the circumstances? The BMW Gina concept body is made of wire and fabric that can change its shape on the fly.

What I like most about the Gina is its ability to morph into different shapes as required. When the car's speed changes, the rear spoiler lip can raise or lower, without ugly flaps like those on various Porsches. Airplanes today have collections of articulated control surfaces, spoilers, ailerons, slats, and flaps, but NASA research into smoothly morphing forms has been going on for a long time and seems ripe for exploitation. so why not have that on cars? the "eyelids" on the Gina are simply wonderful; they blink open when the light source is activated and close when lamps aren't needed. Like our own eyelids. _Automobile_via_NextBigFuture

Another unusual approach to car bodies is the "inflatable car." An inflatable car might be designed to travel on water as well as on the highway -- a big plus.

New materials for automobiles may revolutionise the auto industry. New nano-materials in particular should allow a much lighter-weight automobile while improving strength and resistance to damage.

Video below comes courtesy of Brian Wang.

Watching While You Think and Learn

"With this method we can understand, in greater detail, how the human brain regulates complex thought processes and, for example, how it transforms the numerous sensory impressions into long-term memories" _MNT

The circuits of your brain trace complex paths across space and time. Understanding how brains think means understanding the spatial and temporal actions of the neuronal correlates of thought. Nature Methods has a recent (4Jan09) online report describing the use of a trio of genetically engineered viruses used to trace the activity of complex brain circuits.

In a recent paper in Nature Methods, the team describes the production and application of three types of transsynaptic viruses. The first class was engineered with differentially colored “bulbs” such that neural circuits can be lit up with all the colors of the rainbow. The second type of virus brings a small genetic clock into each infected cell in the circuit so that the elapsed time after virus entry can be recorded. The third class has the most intelligent nanotools. These viruses turn on a special fluorescent bulb in each neuron but only when the neuron is active. Using these tools, researchers can now “watch” the activity of many neurons simultaneously in identified, connected neurons of different brain circuits. _FMI

This work extends previous work using engineered viruses to act as trans-synaptic "ferries" of genes encoding for fluorescent proteins, to infect specific neurons along the path of a particular brain circuit. Such infected neurons along the circuit will subsequently "light up" like a light bulb when activated.

The protein complex was actually produced in the nerve cells of the "infected" mice and functions there as an calcium indicator: if the calcium level within a cell increases - which is the case with every action potential - the D3cpv changes form when it binds to calcium. As a result, the two fluorescent proteins, CFP and YFP, move closer to each other and the transmission of energy between the CFP and YFP changes.

"To observe this change, we use a two-photon microscope developed by Winfried Denk", explains Hasan. Each individual action potential that arises due to a stimulus makes itself directly perceivable in the brain through yellow illumination and the simultaneous reduction in the emission of blue light. The two-photon microscope pinpoints the coincidence between the two fluorescent signals very accurately and clearly reveals which nerve cells are communicating and exchanging information with each other and when. _MedNewsToday

Such methods of observing functioning brain circuits over a period of time should help in piecing together how the brain "thinks." Other tools such as special types of fMRI, MEG, nuclear medicine techniques such as PET and SPECT, etc. will further complete the overall picture, when correlated with psycho-neurological observations.

A reliable "lie-detector" would be a simple test of concept. As expertise with these methods of real-time brain tracing improves, a more subtle and sophisticated reading of minds will become possible.

Competence First and Foremost

I contend that the most useful education currently is learning a trade. Welding, auto repair or electrician's certification will pay the bills through the rough times as people choose to repair instead of purchase. As times get better, some of those trade school credits may transfer to a college and you are on your way. What is that architecture degree, but about a year of drafting plus three tortuous years of art...the discovery of use of light and space...with a dash of engineering. One of the coolest people I know, was a blacksmith who got his doctorate in physical chemistry. You never know where your trade may take you. _SurvivalBlog

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Here at Al Fin we emphasise building competence in children and adolescence in order to build confidence. Self-esteem that is based on actual competencies is a thousand times better than a faux self-esteem that is provided along with government school indoctrination. Such "self esteem" will crumble and fail at the first significant obstacle. Teach practical skills from the very earliest age, and never stop teaching and learning them.

For more than 20 years I have volunteered my time with unemployed US scientists, engineers, and computer professionals. Based upon my experiences, I suggest that young people 1) attempt to have a trade under their belt before they get a four year college degree; 2) preferably pick a college major that will allow one to work for oneself and not as a mere employee; 3) consider mixing two majors such as getting a teaching certificate and forensic accounting as this might give one two options for a career. If the student is not committed to college or unsure what to major in, consider attending a community college first as it is less expensive. Learning something either in college or via the trade pre-college that is hands-on work such as plumbing, construction, roofing, carpentry, welding, aquaculture (fish farming) , farm management, get commercial driver's license, learn to drive farm equipment, learn to repair things -- electronics, washers/dryers, etc. Some high schools have working relationships with community colleges where a high school student can take college courses while still in high school thus saving lots of money while living at home. Some schools will allow students to attend high school part time and learn a trade at the local community college at the same time.

...One should strive to have a college education that is debt free. No one knows what the future holds and graduating with an educational debt for a degree that may or may not provide a job (no longer a career) is a tremendous burden for a young person to enter the adult world with. When looking for a summer job or working during college -- try to pass on the burger flipping jobs and look for work in something where one can enhance a skill such a learning how to pump out septic systems, car parts shop, working on a dairy farm, landscaping, etc. I do think that having a college degree is valuable to one's personal understanding of the world but it is not necessarily essential these days to earn a living. I would urge young people, if possible, to complete a four year degree but not having one is not a sign of failure.

Finally, I also urge parents to help their children to learn basic life skills -- how to manage the home budget, cooking skills, gardening, car repairs; as well as learning to be happy and enjoy life. Learn to sing, dance, play some musical instrument, juggle, something to bring happiness to oneself and to others. _SurvivalBlog

Fortunate is the child who grows up on a farm, ranch, or in a family business. If the parents are smart they will teach the child marketable skills from the earliest age possible. Children who learn to be responsible for their own jobs while acquiring practical and marketable skills, are building confidence for later challenges.

At Al Fin, we consider it juvenile and pointless to criticise persons who took longer than four years to get a college degree. If a person can pay as he goes, based upon his own expertise and skills, taking five, six, seven or more years to get through college without debt is quite admirable. Most college degrees and $5 will get you an overpriced cup of boutique coffee. What a person can do is far more important than the number of letters after his name. Although Al Fin got his undergrad degree in three years, and two advanced degrees in three more, he is now a firm believer in the idea that practical skills should always be mixed with intellectual learning.

BTW, the amphibious vehicle pictured above was hand made from a milk tanker by someone with a lot of practical skills. Could you do something similar? I like the idea of modifying a cylindrical tank or tanker to make an amphibious or submersible vehicle. But I would want a suspension and some other capabilities incorporated into the vehicle pictured below:

Modern Survival: EOTWAA vs. TEOTWAWKI

Image Source

We may not be heading into a "great depression," but a lot of people are beginning to act like something worse is coming. EOTWAA: "End of the world Armageddom Apocalypse" is the extreme viewpoint. TEOTWAWKI: "The end of the world as we know it," is the milder version of the same idea. Both acronyms describe visions of catastrophic cataclysm, and both motivate an increasing number of persons living in the affluent world, to seek out survival information and tools.

It is no longer consider totally insane to think about survival issues. You might even say that "survival" is pushing into the mainstream.

2009 is all about survival. And what better way to prepare than to become a survivalist? Survivalist websites and books were last year’s sleeper hit, no longer the preserve of lone wackos. Barton Biggs, former chief global strategist for Morgan Stanley, rebranded survivalism “sensible”. In his book Wealth, War and Wisdom, he said all right-minded people should “assume the possibility of a breakdown of the civilised infrastructure” and advised the well-off to invest 5 per cent of their income in creating a refuge “well-stocked with seed, fertiliser, canned food and medicine”. A number of self-help books are on the market such as Cody Lundin’s When All Hell Breaks Loose, which instructs readers how to get rid of bodies and feast on rats in the event of disaster.

Jim Rawles tells me traffic to his website, survivalblog.com, increased threefold in the past year: “The demographics of [readers] have noticeably broadened, to include far more left-of-centre and green people ... from a wide range of backgrounds and income levels. In 20 years we may all qualify as survivalists [as] the world seems headed for a deep depression.” _FT

The business of survival has never been so good:

While survivalist offerings expand, consumers often have different ideas of what exactly it means to "be prepared."

"I'll get one potential buyer who will say, 'I want to have a remote location,' and for him that means a house a couple miles out of town," says Moss, the realtor. "Then I'll get the guy who wants to be able only to hike into his location."

...As survivalist businesses grow in uncertain economic times, consumers new to the lifestyle might be overwhelmed by choices. Industry insiders suggest those preparing for the worst do their homework to find companies that put surviving disasters, not profit-making, at the core of their mission. Mr. Lundin estimates that only 5 percent of survivalist businesses are actually committed to living the lifestyle.

For Ritter, of Equipped to Survive, this means that people need to be serious about how they go about purchasing peace of mind. The recession might be cutting into paychecks and cheap survival gear ordered from a slick new website might seem like a great deal, he says, but in a disaster other considerations are more important. "There's a key question," he says. "Are you willing to bet your life on a piece of equipment?" _CSM

For Americans who have grown soft depending upon local and national governments to rescue them in a pinch, the harsh reality of growing governmental incompetence under the narcissist-elect should be enough to shock them into at least considering a slight preparation or two, here and there. Western governments have always had officials with the third world mentality of "bleed the taxpayers and producers, strip the commonwealth bare". With such officials soon achieving full residence in Washington DC, times may look particularly bleak for the hard working person who lives honestly, pays his bills and taxes, and expects no favours from anyone. No wonder people are flocking to survivalblog.com and other survival sites and stores.

Start simple. Water, food, heat, shelter, sanitation, medicines. What are your fallbacks if your current arrangements fall through? What are the fallbacks to your fallbacks? With the spreading insanity in governments, it is only you now, to take care of yourself and people you are responsible for. Think it through.

Abandoned Silo Living

Abandoned silos provide a unique living environment. Whether an abandoned underground missile silo or an abandoned above-ground grain silo, the living experience should be anything but ordinary.

Missile silos might be the world’s most amazing abandonments. There is something about their immense scale, implicit secrecy, loaded history and and underground location that makes them an exciting target for urban exploration. _WebUrbanist

Be sure to watch this video about a couple that bought and rehabilitated an underground missile silo, and turned it into something quite livable indeed. The image below depicts a silo complex turned into an underground getaway for a family with a conventional above-ground home and its own private airstrip.

Image Source

And then, there is the grain silo, providing the adventurous home-owner with his very own high-rise residence. Handy-man skills are extremely helpful for this type of conversion.

Baby Convergence: Toys, Tools, and Fetishes How Does This All Come Together?

The realistic looking "infant" above is actually a doll. A "Reborn Baby" doll, to be specific. These dolls are hand-made by specialty artists who then "adopt" them out on e-Bay or Amazon. The new "parents" often start treating the dolls as if they were real babies!

Meanwhile, on the toy front for children, toy doll manufacturers have been attempting to create more realistic "action dolls", or robo-babies, to boost sales -- for several years. These babies will cry, burp, fart, nap, and wake up to cry again for attention. A talking doll for teaching children how to use the toilet was also popular this past Christmas season.

Hasbro's My Real Baby is going head to head with Mattel's similarly sophisticated Miracle Moves Baby, and in the race to capture the high-end market for little girls, both corporations have enlisted serious hired guns: Hasbro has the smarts of iRobot, while Mattel's project is largely in the hands of Caleb Chung, the visionary creator of Furby. The two companies are also going up against MGA, a small, privately held firm that's set a September release date for My Dream Baby. Though less animatronic than its competitors, My Dream Baby grows, its torso slowly extending like a telescope. The doll ultimately learns to walk. It's the dark horse in the robobaby race, and it's being developed by roboticists in the Far East. Other electronic interactive dolls, many of them cheaper though less advanced, wait in the wings. _Wired

And in the middle of the spectrum are the RealCare Baby simulators that are meant to train teenagers and prospective parents in the close care of very young infants. This promo video is a good presentation of the RealCare Baby and the intentions of its parent company and cooperating institutions. Much advanced over the Tamagotchi, but not nearly as realistic in appearance as the Reborn Baby. And there are are some reports that some of the teenage girls who are assigned RealCare_Baby actually feel more inclined to have a baby, instead of less inclined -- as intended by the program.

In Japan -- where real babies are very scarce -- researchers and engineers are working to create a realistic robot baby to act as a baby surrogate, for women who never got around to having children, or for women who are too old to have another baby. Given the skills of Japanese roboticists, super-realistic robot babies may be first built successfully in Japan.

Imagine a robot that looks and acts just like a baby. Over time, it slowly grows and learns to talk and walk. Soon, owners begin to believe this robot is a real person. Question: If the robot breaks down, how much will these "parents" pay to have the robo-pediatrician fix it?

Assume the realistic robot baby can take milk and food, and use the calories for energy and to keep growing bigger. It learns to run and play and learns school lessons -- perhaps even goes to homeschool and plays a musical instrument?

In a world where women do not marry, do not bear children, work full time and socialise mainly in groups (with time out for an occasional hookup) -- how convenient it would be to have a child that you could turn off while you are at work, and turn back on when you get home. You could feed it robot food indistinguishable from dry dog food and it collects its own "litter", so very little muss and fuss.

Perhaps when these robots are older and more experienced (age 8 and above), they can even run a home business to augment the household income? Very protective parents may refuse to let adolescent robots out of the house -- which could make for some very nasty parent - child arguments. Oh, by the way -- when would a robot come of age and achieve emancipation from its parents?

Very sticky questions, made possible by emerging technologies.

Since the only way out of the current economic doldrums and near - term neo-fascisms that we know of is new disruptive technologies, it is likely that even while the narcissist-elect is putting the screws to the private sectors of the US and the world, investment will continue to move toward R&D in the disruptive tech areas. We need to hope so. We need to hope so very much.

Impact 10,900 BCE? A Possible Solution to Several Coincidental Mysteries of Pre - Historia

Several pre-historic mysteries have been waiting for a solution.

1. What caused the Lesser Dryas abrupt global cooling 12,900 years ago?
2. Why did the Clovis culture of SW North America disappear?
3. Why did technology migrate from South and Central America northward, when human migration from Asia went the opposite direction?
4. What caused the extinction of large mammals such as mammoths?
   

Those and other mysteries may have a common solution: a devastating asteroid impact into mile-thick ice covering southern Canada 12,900 years ago.

Now researchers are reporting that the abrupt cooling — which took place about 12,900 years ago, just as the planet was emerging from an ice age — may have been caused by one or more meteors that slammed into North America.

That could explain the extinction of mammoths, saber-tooth tigers and maybe even the first human inhabitants of the Americas, the scientists report in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.

...But if true, the hypothesis could explain the disappearance of ice age mammals like mammoths and argue against the alternative idea that the animals were hunted to extinction by humans.

It might also help explain the disappearance of the Clovis people, a culture named after a distinctive arrow point discovered in a mammoth skeleton in Clovis, N.M., who are believed to have arrived in the Americas more than 13,000 years ago.

Douglas J. Kennett, a University of Oregon archaeologist who is the lead author of the Science paper, said no Clovis points or bones of the extinct animals had been found above the diamond layer. “It seems those two things synchronously end,” he said.

Dr. Kennett said there also appeared to be a gap of several centuries between the disappearance of the Clovis and the resettlement by other people. _NYT_via_Instapundit

Even more mysterious to me than the disappearance of the Clovis culture, is the fact that more advanced technology appears to have been discovered and heavily utilised first in South and Central America, then migrated northward to tribes of southern and eastern North America. A destruction of northern cultures and a disruption of southward migration paths would have isolated the early migrations south of the devastation zone, where their cultures would have evolved separately from source cultures.

The return to glaciation represented by the Lesser Dryas no doubt destroyed or disrupted earlier human attempts at civilisation in both the old and new worlds. Old legends of "Atlantis" and other mythical lost civilisations might have their origins in pre-impact times between the emergence from the last glaciation and the Lesser Dryas. Much has been lost to human history, and much that human history partially captured is ignored.

It is likely that a catastrophic cutting off of partially civilised cultures has occurred multiple times to human and primate cultures. These groups would have had to "start over" in building a civilisation, revert to barbarity, or die off (with a few other possibilities perhaps best suited for fiction writers).

Future humans may soon face the same challenge of starting over.

China's New Economic Ice Age

For most common people in China, their lives will become harder in the next few years. As the economic crisis worsens in China, more of the elite ruling class will flee China, taking with them more capital. By then, the Chinese economy will be even more devastated. _EpochTimes

In a two - part article (part I, and part II), sociologist and sinologist Ching Xiaonong lays out the problems facing China's economy over the next decade.

Ching sees serious problems arising from the rising costs of Chinese exports, and from the precipitous flight of "foreign capital" out of Chinese enterprises and banks. According to Ching, China's political leaders and China's wealthy have reaped almost all of the benefits of the past 30 years of half-reform.

... after World War II, it took Japan about 30 years to become one of the strongest industrialized countries in the world. By the 1970s, Japan was already one of the leaders in the world economy.

Other examples of rapid reforms include Korea and Taiwan. What about China? Unfortunately, the last 30 years of reform only brought a facelift and attracted foreign companies and capital. However, these companies have not truly brought substantial progress to the broader Chinese economy. The main reason is that the foreign companies are in China primarily for its cheap labor.

On the other hand, Chinese-run companies have not really changed their management systems or invented into many new products or technologies in the last 30 years. Without foreign technology, Chinese firms lack accomplishments in both consumer and industrial manufacturing. Although there are many cars made in China today, most of the core technologies, used in domestic car manufacturing, depend on foreign patents. Chinese auto companies have failed to create new technologies. The exception to this Chinese companies manufacturing quality products that can compete in the international market.

It took Japan only about 20 years to reach the stage of technological independence. Thirty years have passed for China, yet there is no sign of innovation. _EpochTimes

Much of the Chinese economic miracle has been based upon a rapid infrastructural build-up which was more of a "face-lift" to impress international investors and investment analysts -- a Chinese "Potemkin Village" as it were. A great deal of the construction has been shoddy and subject to premature failure. Like a stage set, it was only meant to last for the duration of the play, or the filming. Tough luck for the people who will be living and working in the structures, or driving across the bridges, or living downstream of the dams.

The current economic recession and reduced energy costs may reduce Chinese wages and other costs of exporting enough to attract overseas factories back to China -- temporarily. But the same forces that have been making it costlier to manufacture in China -- rising wages, high costs of shipping product, corruption and uncertainty over government policy changes, and more -- are guaranteed to return with a vengeance at the first sign of global economic recovery. Smart investors and manufacturers will look for an easier way.

Gordon Chang is another student of China who is predicting large - scale problems for the Chinese government and economy in the relatively near future. China's authoritarian government is simply unable to monitor and control all of the "whiplashing" dynamics of the Chinese economy. There are several different factions within the CCP, and corruption reaches quite deeply into the governmental apparatus.

Economic depressions can be very unstable times for such over-stressed governments as the CCP is becoming. The growing numbers of homeless, temporarily unemployed, and permanently impoverished in China adds considerably to the instability which the government must deal with.

Stressed governments often look to foreign adventures as a way of taking their citizens' minds off of local problems. Let us hope that China's government does not jump into a diversionary military invasion as a type of pressure relief valve. Under the circumstances, such a move would likely accelerate the coming breakup of the Chinese Empire.

What Will Change Everything?

At Edge.org the question is asked of several dozen scientists, thinkers, and authors -- "What Will Change Everything?"

Kevin Kelly thinks "A New Kind of Mind" will change everything. Ed Regis thinks it will be "Molecular Manufacturing." Juan Enriquez sees humanity evolving into a new species of hominid. Stuart Kauffman foresees "An Open Universe," with a Buckminster Fuller-esque "doing more with less" world of dizzyingly evolving complexity. Philosopher Marcelo Gleiser believes humans will master death. Nick Bostrom anticipates the coming of "Superintelligence." Chris Anderson of the TED Conference expects to see a revolution in education from enhanced web technologies. Gregory Paul sees the coming of the CYBORG. Freeman Dyson thinks we will be able to communicate thoughts and feelings directly from brain to brain...... And several dozen more, many of them more startling than any of the above. Check them out.

It would not take much to change everything. But for the change to be desirable, western civilisation needs to survive a few decades longer. The west is the driver of advanced science and technology, as well as the matrix for most sophisticated thought and futuristic ideas. Something better should emerge, if given time to incubate.

When Government Makes Hard Times Worse

The financial sector is depressed, and banks are not lending money as easily. Many employers are choosing bankruptcy protection to re-organise, and are laying off workers. Companies are cutting back on the number of retail stores and outlets, and even the largest corporations and regional governors are traveling to Washington DC with hat in hand, looking for a bailout. Is it another great depression?

Not yet. But the new government of "hope and change" has not yet taken total control, so a watchful waiting period is in order. Never underestimate the ability of government to make any bad situation worse, particularly after Al Franken joins the Senate, and the narcissist-elect fires up his scarcity engine. Much worse.

When we think of "survival", we usually are thinking about wilderness survival. Basic outdoor survival is important, and you should understand the basic tools:

1. Knife: Sharp sturdy blade, multi-tool a plus
   
2. Fire Starter and Tinder: Butane lighter, Firesteel, etc.
   
3. Metal Cup or Can: Drinking and heating/cooking container
   
4. First Aid Kit: Simple bandages, antiseptic, ointment, tape, latex gloves
   
5. Plastic Trash Bag: Can work as poncho, simple shelter
   
6. Water Purification: Iodine, Aqua Pure, Bleach, light-weight filters etc.
   
7. Backpackers Hammock: Hanging bivy
   
8. Whistle: Combination whistle, compass, magnifier, etc.
   
9. Flashlight: With means to recharge, manual, solar, cig. lighter, etc
   
10. Protein Bars: High Calorie Type, avoid type that melts easily
    

But most of us live in cities, so what do you need to be concerned about in an urban environment? Below is an example of different commercially available kits for urban survival.

* Personal survival kits -typically, these kits provide for one person for 1-3 days. If you are only interested in a small, inexpensive kit, this is the type of kit you should look at. These kits also include student kits that are designed for kids to leave at school.
* Auto emergency kit - used in cars, busses and trucks. These kits usually are packed in a hard plastic case that protects that contents from impact
* Home survival kit - these kits can sustain from 1-4 persons for 72 hours. These kits can be packed in backpacks or hard plastic containers. These are the most popular kits for families.
* Office emergency kits - these kits are designed for small offices from 5-100 people for 3 days. Most of these kits are packed in hart plastic containers.
* School survival kits - these are specialized kits for schools and other organizations. These kits contain survival supplies for lock down and other special situations. _UrbanSurvival

Basic services in many cities are apt to break down under strain. Detroit is an example of a continually broken down city (and not just their football team). Soon many other cities will be joining Detroit in that category. Corruption in city halls and state capitals diverts needed resources away from vital services, and into the hands of elected officials and their family/friends/cronies. Illinois and Chicago are excellent examples of such corruption. Your police and fire departments, water and sewer services, gas and electric supply, and garbage pickup, may soon become intermittent as in many nations overseas. Be prepared.

Soon, the narcissist-elect will become the narcissist-in-chief, and Washington DC -- already corrupt -- will become even worse. Currently, the US military is the only branch of government that attempts to hold itself to high standards of efficiency. Under the new reich of hope and change, watch the military degrade as it did under Carter and Clinton. Without the US military, foreign disasters will go unrelieved. Even worse, national disasters such as hurricane Katrina will go much longer without robust relief services. Be prepared.

Entire generations of Americans have let their personal competencies and preparations for hard times suffer, convinced that should worse come to worse, the government will always take care of them. Far too many Americans are relying on government retirement services, health care services, and other government supports. They appear unaware that a new type of government is taking over, a government of complete and utter incompetents.

What do you do when the power goes off? Wait for it to come back on? What if it doesn't come back on? What happens in your hometown then? How short is the fuse on the powderkeg where you live? Factor in gas and water outages. Trash piling up, sewage backing up, fuel for vehicles running out. Supermarkets running out of food, even WalMart running out of supplies. What do you do?