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June 19, 2010
Are we getting closer to an understanding?
Finding the Higgs boson is the primary aim of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiment in Geneva, but new results from a rival study taking place in the US suggest there may be five versions of the elusive subatomic particle, which has never been detected despite five decades of research.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=228x67989
( Fortune hath conveyed to my understanding; and, but 
Measure for Measure: III, i )
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This is from a post : http://www.energybulletin.net/node/53150
The difficulty, of course, is that the end of the age of abundance isn’t happening because of changes in consciousness; it’s happening because of the laws of physics. The abundance we’ve all grown up thinking as normal was there only because a handful of nations burned their way through the Earth’s store of fossil carbon at breakneck speed. Most of the fossil fuel reserves that can be gotten cheaply and quickly have already been extracted and burnt; the dregs that remain – high-sulfur oil, tar sands, brown coal, and the like – yield less energy after what’s needed to extract them is taken into account, and impose steep ecological costs as well; renewables and other alternative energy resources have problems of their own, and have proved unable to take up more than a small fraction of the slack. These limitations are not subject to change, or even to negotiation; they define a predicament that we will all have to live with, one way or another, for a very long time to come.
| ( The same abundance as your good fortunes are: Merchant of Venice: I, ii ) |
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This is a post from http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5580
While many would say that increased consumption ala the Western model will head off population growth, I must point out that this is a rather insane proposal.
This is important because it undermines the idea that we will have a continuation of the dominant model of an infinite planet.
Because the consumption footprint of a Westerner is somewhere around seventy times that of the average third worlder, first worlders each represent seventy people. That means the United States holds an effective population of 21 billion people. To bring everyone up to Western standards means increasing the effective human population to approx. 476 billion people.
This is not possible. With peak metals occurring within the next few decades, peak soil already having happened, peak water biting our asses even now, the oceans crashing, etc., we will be lucky to enslave the rest of the world and live high on the hog ourselves. (This is apparently the Western strategy through the spread of "Democracy," which is really only a way to infiltrate economies with corporate vampires. If democracy was effective, we would have universal health care, free education, and a green world--that is, after all what all the polls show the population wants, despite right wing propaganda.)
The problem, as I see it is an irrational faith, yes faith, in science and engineering. A faith that this omnipotent god will lay its blessed hands upon us and cure our faults, our inability to live within the planet's constraints, our tendency to defecate in the nest, and our hatred of the rest of the biota which inhabit the planet. You see, our dream is not a paradigm that doesn't create the problems in the first place, our dream is to pursue "progress" even if we make horrible destructive mistakes in the name of science and then whip up "solutions" that merely sweep the scat under the bed rather than stopping humans from crapping all over in the first place.
Change the paradigm, not the paradigm's techno stuff.
(The sciences that should become our country; King Henry V: V, ii )
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May 8, 2009 Conventional Crude Oil Produced to Date
The oil drum today: 1.05 Trillion barrels crude oil have been produced to date. 868 Billion baarrels just since 1970. The world is presently using about 26 Billion barrels of conventional crude oil per year.
(Double, double toil and trouble; Macbeth: IV, i )
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April 22, 2009 Beyond Holocaust Studies
How humans will treat others as they get reduced to a struggle at the lowest level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs will no doubt play out in different ways.
I am presently reading the book "Overshoot". Without fossil fuels the author contends the world population will be reduced to under 1 billion.
The world population is now about 6.77 billion and is still increasing at about 75 million per year. The average excess die-off this century must be about 75 million per year starting now to reach 1 billion by 2100.
I know many do not want to even consider such a die off as possible or realistic. I think it is a fascinating subject with many philosophical ramifications about human nature in such circumstances.
(All studies here I solemnly defy, King Henry IV, part I: I, iii )
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April 18, 2009 Implausible Physics
Some aspects of modern physics are implausible to me. I like reading about possible theories of relativity and quantum mechanics. Here is a link to another implausible theory called the "Discontinuous Ether Model" by Bernard Feldman, ftc@cruzio.com
http://www.journaloftheoretics.com/Articles/2-1/bf-fp.htm
Here is a quote from the article: "many of the triumphs of modern physics came about by defying what was formerly thought to be plausible so the principle or notion of plausibility for all intents and purposes has been discarded by the scientific community"
This article does not help me understand modern physics.
(Requiring with a plausible obedience; agree with Measure for Measure: III, i )
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April 7, 2009
Modern Bible scholarship finds no evidence that any of the events relating to the Passover actually occurred. This includes no evidence of the existence of Moses and the Hebrews in Egypt.
They also indicate that these are myths and legends developed over centuries and were not written down until hundreds of years after the events supposedly took place.
What should I believe?
(More strange than true: I never may believe A Midsummer Night's Dream: V, i )