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my own closing ceremony

And now that it has been more than a week since the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics closing ceremony, things are returning to normal. Classes have started back at UBC and the grind of assignments, lab expectations, long term projects, and midterm exams has provided a nice break from the breakneck pace of the Olympics. Moving [...]

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so accepting of Zombie Mode

I see it on their faces every day. It is worn on the numerous blank stares I walk by going to class at UBC. It hangs on those who sit next to me on the bus, staring into nowhere. Zombie Mode. That singularity of mind which is exemplified by destruction of all attentiveness to environment [...]

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my thoughts on the Bloom Box

Over the last few days, I’ve received emails from several friends requesting my thoughts on Bloom Energy. The Bloom Box looks interesting but the piece from 60 Minutes was incredibly misleading. The celebrities, the press releases and all the hype has looked like little more than just posturing for social capital in a competitive silicon [...]

Featured Post

my own closing ceremony

And now that it has been more than a week since the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics closing ceremony, things are returning to normal. Classes have started back at UBC and the grind of assignments, lab expectations, long term projects, and midterm exams has provided a nice break from the breakneck pace of the Olympics. Moving [...]

Renewable Energy Won’t Save Us

Renewable energy is often touted as the future because it has lower CO2 emissions or “can solve our energy scarcity problems because it will replace oil”. Unfortunately, renewable energy is far from solving those massive problems. Solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, etc… all require tremendous amounts of oil to get their infrastructure up and running, emitting [...]

Asides

• If you watched the Vancouver 2010 closing ceremonies last week you saw giant inflatable beavers, moose, mounties etc... along with Canada's music "talent" like Nickelback and Avril Lavigne. There's a lot more up here than wild animals and I don't think anyone in Canada actually listens to Nickelback or Avril Lavigne so I feel like the stereotypes Canada propagates about itself aren't always true... but that's not to say it still isn't funny. Maybe they push these stereotypes on the world to keep everyone from moving here? If so, genius! [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="700" caption="via Hark a Vagrant"][/caption] #
• Attending TEDx Vancouver this year was a huge honor as the talks were inspiring and the conversations were refreshing. By far the most amazing talk was by Canadian/South African District 9 director Neill Blomkamp on what aliens would look like. He jumps from Karashev to Kurzweil to the inevitabilities posed by Heinberg (even though he doesn't mention him by name). At first I was thinking this was nothing but futurist propaganda but then it hits a point, and it turns, and when it does it sends a chill down your spine. (more...) #
• Oh PhD Comics, you know exactly what grad school (at least in the sciences) is like, [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="so true..."][/caption] #
• Energy analyst and author Michael Klare has the plot for the prequel to Avatar all written out, It’s the torrid summer of 2144, just a decade before Avatar begins.  (That movie takes place in summer 2154, after a flight from Earth that, we’re told, involves six continuous years of sleep, which helps us backdate Jake Scully’s Venezuelan combat tours.)  As it has been for decades, the world is at war, with competing power blocs fighting bitterly over a diminishing pool of vital resources. Three great power centers dominate the global resource struggle, all located in the northern latitudes where the climate still remains tolerable and the land still receives sufficient rainfall to support agriculture.  The first of these, in whose legions both Scully and Quaritch fight, is the North American Federation, founded after the United States, facing desertification in its southern half, invaded and absorbed Canada.  The second, Greater China, incorporating northern China, the Korean peninsula, and eastern Siberia (seized from Russia in a series of wars), dominates what’s left of Asia; the third, the North European Alliance, encompassing Germany, Russia (west of the Urals), and Scandinavia, relies heavily on Arctic resources.  As in the world portrayed by George Orwell in 1984, these powers continually jockey for dominance in shifting alliances, while their armies face one another in the torrid, still relatively resource-rich parts of the planet.  In this neo-Orwellian world, warfare and the constant pressure of resource competition are the only constants. It only gets more depressing if you choose to read on. #
• sure, we still have trees but the virgin forest ecosystem holds so much more than just a nice looking forest. One example: the original mycelial mat which acts as the neural network of the forest moving nutrients from tree to tree. Farewell natural heritage, at least we had Teddy Roosevelt to save portions of our natural beauty through the National Park System, otherwise there'd be a roller coaster in Yellowstone Canyon by now. (more...) #
• Learning what its like to live in Vancouver now has me wondering what it was like to live in Vancouver even 10 or 20 years ago, especially since so much of the city's growth has taken place since 1980. These photos from the Miss 604 Blog really demonstrate that growth, (more...) #
• John Michael Greer's latest blog post has some information for you. Our energy problem and societal decline isn't occurring only because we are losing net energy rapidly (energy returned on energy invested), global civilization is in rapid decline because all our alternatives to oil are much less energy dense. From the blog post, (more...) #