Technology and Society

Making Our Own Leaves

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Here’s an interesting piece on breakthroughs in artificial photosynthesis. My biggest problem with it is that it talks about hydrogen as being “easy to store,” but it doesn’t describe in any way how this is done. Clearly, if you don’t have to carry it in a vehicle (as would be required for transport fuel) the job is a lot easier, but it’s still non trivial. If it’s simply for load leveling, you have a lot more options, but they still come down to three: hydrides, high-pressure gas, or liquid. The latter uses a lot of energy to chill it, and loses it in rewarming.

There is a picture of a notional system in a garage, but it shows a water tank, hydrogen tank, and oxygen tank, and the separated gases (or liquids?). The water tank looks like about half the volume of the separated elements. How realistic is this? What is going on? I’d expect more from an article in Technology Review.

General, Science And Society

News I Can Use

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Sort of.

I had my eyes checked last week (for the first time in three or four years) and discovered that I’m color blind. Sort of. It’s minor enough that it’s never been an issue from a functional standpoint, apparently, and this is the first time that I’ve ever had this problem diagnosed. I went on line to check out some of the tests to confirm it, and I do show up as red-green color blind, but only mildly. That is, I can sometimes make out the things that normal sighted are supposed to see, but some of them just barely very dim, and I can see some (but not all) of the numbers that true red-green color blind people aren’t supposed to at all. On the ones that have one number for normal, and a different one for color-blind, I see the color-blind one more clearly, but I can actually see both. And I’ve never had any trouble distinguishing red from green traffic lights (which would be the biggest problem, I would think, though fully color-blind people know from position). When I look at the pictures that show what the world looks like to normal and deficient eyes, I can very clearly see the vivid red dress as red, whereas it should be more of a greenish color if I were fully color blind. I wonder what this page looks like to someone with no red receptors? Are both pictures the same? And it makes me wonder what the red dress would look like to someone with normal vision (something I’ve never wondered before, because I’ve always thought I had normal vision).

So, the question is, have I always had this borderline condition, and it’s only become apparent now, or was I much better in my youth (I never failed a test as a kid) and have deteriorated a lot with mileage? I’m guessing that maybe I was always borderline, but far enough over the border toward normal earlier that I always passed the test, not realizing that I could have been seeing the numbers more clearly had my color sight been better, and perhaps with age, I’ve drifted into a region where I don’t fully pass any more, but am still a long way from being unable to distinguish red from green.

Anyway, the opthalmologist recommended a follow-up visit to a neuro-opthalmologist, just to make sure that there wasn’t something else going on (just as a precaution, because it’s unlikely that it’s caused by anything serious).

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

GM’s “Business Plan”

5 Comments

Manzi is on the job, deconstructing it. Bottom line:

…this is not a real business plan, but simply a political document. It exists to provide political cover to members of Congress. But if that’s the case, it’s an unintentionally beautiful illustration of why industrial policy fails. It’s both economically crucial and very hard to allocate capital well; that’s why people who are good at it make so much money. Businesses struggle to do this well, and they’re really trying. What do you think the odds are that this is a wise use of money, when the people involved are barely pretending to try?

All this is doing is kicking the can down the road, and delaying (and making much worse) the inevitable and painful restructuring that has to take place. And I’m not talking about just GM, or the auto industry.

Political Commentary, Science And Society, Space

Safe, Simple, Soon

4 Comments

Now, the “off-the-shelf” five-segment first stage for the Ares 1 is going to a new propellant formulation, for environmental reasons. No, that won’t take long or cost much to develop or test. And apparently we don’t even have the capability in country to do it currently — we have to rely on the Swedes.

If they were worried about the environment, they shouldn’t have gone with a solid in the first place.

How long before this monstrosity is put out of its (and our) misery? They need to just take the whole concept out behind the VABarn and put it down with a sledge hammer.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

What Is Happening In Canada?

23 Comments

There seems to be little in the US news media about it, though there is an AP story. It seems to be a major constitutional crisis. (Canadian) Mark Steyn explains.

[Thursday afternoon update]

Has the coup failed? It seems to have at least been postponed:

…the decision to suspend Parliament only gives the Tories a reprieve until late January, when they plan to table a budget that could set them up for a no-confidence vote.

Well, in this case (unlike that of GM), it’s probably better to buy time.

[Mid-afternoon update]

The putsch attempt is collapsing:

Within an hour of Prime Minister Stephen Harper winning a two-month reprieve, some Grit MPs were pulling back from the idea of trying to replace the Tory regime with a Liberal-NDP coalition propped up by the Bloc Quebecois.

Toronto MP Jim Karygiannis says the coalition idea is finished and is calling on Stephane Dion to resign the Liberal leadership sooner rather than later.

Dion is scheduled to step aside as Liberal leader once a successor is chosen May 2 but many Liberals remain uneasy about the prospect of ensconcing him in the prime minister’s office even temporarily.

Good.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

Nice Little Economy You Have Here

9 Comments

It would be a shame if anything were to happen to it…

“We’re on the brink with the U.S. auto manufacturing industry,” Press told The Associated Press in an interview. “If we have a catastrophic failure of one of these car companies, in this tender environment for the economy, it’s a huge blow. It could trigger a depression.”

I’d be inclined to take this more seriously if it weren’t coming from someone asking the taxpayers for a multi-billion-dollar handout.

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