over the cliff, onto the rocks.: Cool

Saturday, November 03, 2007

Cool

The Air Force is leading the way on alternate energy, allowing companies to run wind farms and solar
power plants on its bases. Cool. Unfortunately, they also want to include nuclear power plants in the initiative. Scary.

On the other hand, we do have lots of BBs we've got to do something about.

10 comments:

Steve Bates said...: Well done. But now I have a craving for ice cream...; Sunday, November 04, 2007 9:34:00 AM
hipparchia said...: me too. dying a few years earlier because i ate too much ice cream and got fat can't possibly be as harmful to the world at large as deploying, or even stockpiling, nuclear weapons.; Sunday, November 04, 2007 10:01:00 AM
Anonymous said...: It used to be 5%, but there has been some reduction, so it's a bit higher. That was the portion of the nuclear arsenal of the US or the Soviet Union that had to be detonated in the air to create the condition of nuclear winter.

Understand, you didn't have to send them anywhere, just take them out to the national nuclear test site and detonate them. They would kick up so much dust and debris, and thrown it so far up in the atmosphere that the sun wouldn't be able to adequately warm the planet, and plants wouldn't have enough sunlight to live.

When you have so many that you can lose track of six of them for a day and half, it is time to get rid of them.

Having enough nuclear weapons to destroy the entire planet ought to be enough for any country.; Sunday, November 04, 2007 9:21:00 PM
hipparchia said...: Having enough nuclear weapons to destroy the entire planet ought to be enough for any country.

one would think so.

i've seen it mentioned a few places, and it scares me to think how many folks might be serious about it, but there's this nifty little idea floating around that we don't need to do anything about global warming because we can always induce nuclear winter to counteract it.; Sunday, November 04, 2007 9:36:00 PM
Keifus said...: I have an aversion to those sorts of representational demonstrations. Laying life savers end-to-end, and all that crap. It's really quite horrifying enough without having to make a cute analogy.

Alternate energy and ice cream, eh? Well, here's something fun: Ben and Jerry (and science!) vs. CFCs.

K (ytimpm: I pity yo' mama.); Monday, November 05, 2007 9:29:00 AM
hipparchia said...: keifus:

oh wow, that is way cool! thanks for pointing it out. what i was doing before i switched to biochemistry.

i used to agree on the cute analogies, and i still prefer hard numbers and accurate graphs, but for mathophobes, things like stacks of cookies really do work better. the biggest problem is that all too often the people who design those are mathophobes themselves and do a poor job of translating the numbers.

the oero cookies demonstration looked better than most, although i have to admit that i haven't fact-checked ben's numbers. nor have i looked up anything about bryan's statements above [i vaguely remember some of it from years ago].; Monday, November 05, 2007 5:19:00 PM
Keifus said...: (Shhh, don't tell anyone. Actually closer to chemical engineering than anything else I've done, and only satisfying projects in five years. Got some unpublished work on cooling too.); Tuesday, November 06, 2007 6:48:00 AM
Steve Bates said...: I don't know about the effectiveness of laying LifeSavers end-to-end, but I've always liked Dorothy Parker's remark: "If all the young ladies who attended the Yale promenade dance were laid end to end, no one would be the least surprised." Amazingly, this was said in the days before Bush was at Yale...

[kffykup - don't tempt me...]; Tuesday, November 06, 2007 10:07:00 AM
hipparchia said...: ha! i knew you were a kindred soul the first time i met you[r fray persona], keif. maybe you should send your resume off to ben and jerry.; Tuesday, November 06, 2007 4:20:00 PM
hipparchia said...: steve:

kiffykups are a mashup of kittens and jiffy pop?

thanks for that link. i love dorothy parker, and until now, i didn't have ready access to a good source of her quotes.; Tuesday, November 06, 2007 4:24:00 PM