Techno Robot Pudding

it’s true. i’m starting to get that whole Ringo hair thing going. not good. it’d make me more likely to play drums in a rock band. i just don’t have the time for that kind of commitment. oh fuck you, pete best.

now for some actual news! check this. as someone who outgrew asthma and has siblings who still suffer from the ailment, it’s reassuring to see some progress being made on the therapeutic front.

Bronchial thermoplasty uses radio frequency currents to reduce the amount of smooth muscle in the airways, stopping the narrowing seen in asthma.
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The researchers… monitored 112 people with asthma aged 18 to 65 over the course of one year.

All continued to have access to the inhalers and relievers they commonly used to treat their condition.

However, half of the group were also given the bronchial thermoplasty treatment.

These people had an average of 86 more days without asthma symptoms during the year than those who only had access to medication.

The bronchial therapy group also needed to use their inhalers and relievers less, and had better overall control of their asthma.

this is great news. i think if the process is refined, we might see less and less of the scary albuterol inhalers which are expensive and annoying. every time i hear one of my siblings having a difficult coughing fit, it’s rather uncomfortable. i can still vividly remember waking up one morning and not being able to breathe. i remember frantically grabbing at my chest and throat, gasping for every tiny ounce of air that i could. i remember the feeling that came over me as my blood lost oxygen. i remember spending time in an oxygen tent. i would not wish that experience upon anybody.

moving from personal to global sciences, we have a nice editorial which echoes the exact same fears i have been expressing about biofuels.

So what’s wrong with these programmes? Only that they are a formula for environmental and humanitarian disaster. In 2004 I warned, on these pages, that biofuels would set up a competition for food between cars and people. The people would necessarily lose: those who can afford to drive are richer than those who are in danger of starvation. It would also lead to the destruction of rainforests and other important habitats.
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Since the beginning of last year, the price of maize has doubled. The price of wheat has also reached a 10-year high, while global stockpiles of both grains have reached 25-year lows. Already there have been food riots in Mexico and reports that the poor are feeling the strain all over the world. The US department of agriculture warns that “if we have a drought or a very poor harvest, we could see the sort of volatility we saw in the 1970s, and if it does not happen this year, we are also forecasting lower stockpiles next year”. According to the UN food and agriculture organisation, the main reason is the demand for ethanol: the alcohol used for motor fuel, which can be made from maize and wheat.
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Already we know that biofuel is worse for the planet than petroleum. The UN has just published a report suggesting that 98% of the natural rainforest in Indonesia will be degraded or gone by 2022.
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But it gets worse. As the forests are burned, both the trees and the peat they sit on are turned into carbon dioxide. A report by the Dutch consultancy Delft Hydraulics shows that every tonne of palm oil results in 33 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, or 10 times as much as petroleum produces. I feel I need to say that again. Biodiesel from palm oil causes 10 times as much climate change as ordinary diesel.
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We need a moratorium on all targets and incentives for biofuels, until a second generation of fuels can be produced for less than it costs to make fuel from palm oil or sugar cane.
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But most of their effects are indirect, while the devastation caused by biofuel is immediate and already visible.

There you have it. Biofuels, the supposed saviors in the fuel debate, can be more harmful than they are helpful. We must put more money into research on energy from hydrogen and solar sources. Hydrogen, when the process for acquiring and distributing it has become efficient enough, would be ideal. If we could find a way to utilize the energy of hydrogen to get more hydrogen, the fuel would produce itself. Thus, the process by which hydrogen is derived must become more energy and material efficient. You cannot burn oil to get more oil. But in the future, you may be able to use hydrogen to refine more hydrogen. And make it less of a pollution problem than oil wastes. Think about it.

There’s your health sciences and conservationist rant of the day. Thank you, and don’t forget to drink a glass of milk before bed.

so we really need to get to work on this alternative energy solutions thing. i have long been a proponent of the use of hydrogen power, but as of now the process is still too inefficient to be practical. what of ethanol? well… it’s no good.

ethanol is “renewable” to a degree. how so? you grow more plants that produce it. so… we’ll be reaping down plants for a largely disposable use. kind of like how trees become paper? yep. except paper can be recycled more easily. can combusted ethanol? not that i know of.

my family has some experience growing crops, so i can safely say that when you keep planting and reaping crops in the same batch of land repeatedly, it drains the soil. the quantity of nutrients and the overall quality of the ground plummets when the land is not given an appropriate period to “rest.” with the fuel demands of the world at the door, can the growing industry accommodate everyone without causing permanent harm to the environment? doubt it.

there’s also the question of food prices. if the leading producers of ethanol are crops in the grain family, what does it do to prices for consumable grain? drives them up, since demand will not be fulfilled by supply.

here’s a look at the problems in Brazil’s ethanol situation….

The ethanol industry has been linked with air and water pollution on an epic scale, along with deforestation in both the Amazon and Atlantic rainforests, as well as the wholesale destruction of Brazil’s unique savannah land.
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While Brazil’s tropical climate allows it to source alcohol from its sugar crop, the US has turned to its industrialised corn belt for the raw material to substitute oil. The American economist Lester R Brown, from the Earth Policy Institute, is leading the warning voices: “The competition for grain between the world’s 800 million motorists who want to maintain their mobility and its two billion poorest people who are simply trying to stay alive is emerging as an epic issue.”
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One estimate is that corn needs 30 per cent more energy than the finished fuel it produces.

Another problem is the land required to produce it. One estimate is that the grain needed to fill the petrol tank of a 4X4 with ethanol is sufficient to feed a person for a year.

food for thought.

you’ve probably heard the news. Steve Irwin, the croc hunter, has died.

some people are going to crack silly jokes about it, but the fact of the matter is he died doing what he loved. how many people can you say that about? he was zany at times, but he made his subject appeal to a very wide audience. he also promoted conservation efforts, like wildlife preserves.

when i actually had the time to, i enjoyed watching his programs. people thought he was crazy because of the high risk activities he was participating in. and maybe he was, but in the end the job got done. you learned something and had some fun along the way. his message was not one of messing with dangerous animals, but of education and environmental preservation.

and with that i say: rest in peace Steve.

today is july 4. happy birthday USA.

i like fireworks. apparently not as much as my neighbors down the street. the persistent rumbling and squealing has created the illusion that oprah is on their lawn- and she is having serious bowel difficulties.

now i recall why fireworks of that type are illegal in this state.

also, italy beats germany. go winner of portugal vs. france, though it’d be a pity if i had to root for france.

i’ve also succumbed to the fever and purchased an xbox 360. while my television is “standard” definition (as the quality snobs say with increasingly condescending tone) i have had the pleasure of playing with the system on my parents’ high-def set. the games look impressive regardless of the display method, and i’d even go so far as to say that the high definition look is better but not necessary. call this student of video a heathen if you will, but i don’t really care.

i think the high-def spec is yet another excuse for people who have nothing better to do to masturbate over trivial aspects of image quality. it’s like the “audiophile” who brags about how his indie music is stored on his computer in 320kbps ogg vorbis format. fuck you, i can sometimes tell the difference between a 320kbps ogg and 128kbps mp3 (given the right songs), but who the fuck cares? go back to having arguments with people on wikipedia. jackass.

huzzah, he might just talk about something relevant this time. or not. let’s read on.

does DRM have a smell? yes, and it’s very much like bullshit.

the stench of big brother’s rotten garlic breath as he peers over your shoulder is nothing new. but when companies want to put chips in your computer to manage “rights” it’s getting ridiculous. what’s more important, the rights of the corporation or the individual?

given, there is a slight loss of profit due to piracy, but statistics suggest that piracy isn’t putting that big of a dent in the recording industry- and if companies are losing so much money why haven’t the bigwigs cut their own salaries?