80% more energy is all that is needed →

Published October 13, 2013  ·  All posts on Oct 13

[T]he world’s poor people are starving and dying for lack of cheap energy today. Driving the price of energy up and denying loans for coal-fired power plants is depriving the poor of cheap energy today, on the basis that it may help their grandchildren in fifty years. That is criminal madness. The result of any policy that increases energy prices is more pain and suffering. Rich people living in industrialized nations should be ashamed of proposing such an inhumane way to fight the dangers of CO2, regardless of whether those dangers are imaginary or real.

~ Willis Eschenbach from, Double the Burn Rate, Scotty! – Watts Up With That?

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Notice when you are happy →

Published October 11, 2013  ·  All posts on Oct 11  ·  

And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

~ Kurt Vonnegut

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The little fears →

Published October 9, 2013  ·  All posts on Oct 9  ·  

For to practise parkour is to seek fear on a daily basis, to confront it head-on, to face it naked and alone. In parkour, you are stripped to your essence. There is no equipment to rely on, no safety harnesses or padding to protect you, no teammate to take the brunt when you are tired. It’s you, and you alone. The only things that prevent you getting hurt or injured are your skills, your judgement, your ability – no one else’s.

~ Dan Edwardes from, Moving Through Fear – Dan Edwardes

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Fuel cells →

Published October 7, 2013  ·  All posts on Oct 7

Two leading fuel cell manufacturers, Massachusetts-based Nuvera and Albany, N.Y.-based Plug Power Inc., will each receive $650,000 from DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. The companies will provide matching funds and labor of their own. A PNNL team led by Brooks will oversee and evaluate the two-year program.

Industry officials estimate that approximately 300,000 refrigerated trucks with auxiliary power units are on the road in the United States. By replacing the small diesel engines with the more efficient fuel cell, users will see fuel savings of approximately 10 gallons a day per unit, in addition to reduced emission of pollutants and significantly quieter operation.

~ Phys.org from, Refrigerated trucks to keep their cool thanks to fuel cell technology

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New avatar →

Published October 5, 2013  ·  All posts on Oct 5

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Extracting periodicities from message arrival times →

Published October 4, 2013  ·  All posts on Oct 4

algorithm – Extracting periodicities from message arrival timestamps – Stack Overflow

StackOverflow question of mine, any math or programming peeps have any ideas?

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People need to travel →

Published October 3, 2013  ·  All posts on Oct 3  ·  

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.

~ Mark Twain

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1953 Ford Jubilee tractor →

Published October 2, 2013  ·  All posts on Oct 2

1953 Ford Jubilee: Anyone interested in a tractor? Good condition, running and everything works, 3-point lift, brush hog, scraper/snow blade… fully working, but it is also a collector’s item if you’re into antique tractors.

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Getting to space is easy. Staying in space is hard. →

Published September 29, 2013  ·  All posts on Sep 29

The reason it’s hard to get to orbit isn’t that space is high up. It’s hard to get to orbit because you have to go so fast.

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The speed you need to stay in orbit is about 8 kilometers per second. Only a fraction of a rocket’s energy is used to lift up out of the atmosphere; the vast majority of it is used to gain orbital (sideways) speed.

~ Randall Munroe from, Orbital Speed

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Once you start down the path to the dark side →

Published September 27, 2013  ·  All posts on Sep 27  ·  

Parkour is about taking the road less travelled by, and choosing the harder path every time. It’s about understanding that excellence does not arise from simply doing what is convenient or what pays well or what advances your personal career. The Olympic Games are sponsored by Coca-Cola and McDonalds. That’s not right.

Have principles. Stick to them. Because if you don’t stand for something you’ll fall for anything.

~ Dan Edwards from, The Business of Parkour: A Question of Principle (or How to Resist the Red-Bullion) – Dan Edwardes

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