Facebook and RFK, Jr.
I highly doubt that Facebook gives a rat’s ass about your campaign, just like the vast majority of other Americans.
Tagged with: Facebook and RFK
Adding Solar PV to Your EV
Here’s a new concept in electric transportation that I don’t expect to catch on. Imagine you park your car somewhere on a sunny day, you unlock a roof-mounted container, and pull out an array of solar PV that you then unfold and drape over your car. You plug the array into your car’s charge port. When you’re ready to leave, you reverse the process.
While the car is parked, you get a maximum of 1200 Watts, meaning that you’ll need about 30 hours of sunshine to charge your base-model Tesla Series 3 from 20% SoC to 80%.
Aside from the issues of cost, added weight, wind-resistance, theft, and vandalism, how long will it take the average driver to conclude that this is a royal pain in the ass?
Trump on the Golf Course
Why on Earth would anyone have expected anything else? Concern for others is so far off-brand for Trump, it would be like McDonalds serving fresh-squeezed turmeric juice and wheat germ.
Tagged with: Trump concern for others
Trying in Vain to Understand Trumpism
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Trumpism is that the top people who worked for the former president during his term in the White House refuse to support him for re-election, including our top military officers, but that the typical Republican voter does not seem to care a whit.
Tagged with: rying in Vain to Understand Trumpism
What Is “Doggie Consciousness?”
Humankind domesticated the dog approximately 20K years ago, and since that time, most of us “dog people” have struggled with the issue: What is it like to be a dog? At what level do they think?
Obviously, they’re beholden to us, but beyond that, it sure would be interesting to have some insight here, wouldn’t it?
Tagged with: dog consciousness
Trump and Biden: The Reasons for Their Candidacies
Alexander Vindman entered the American consciousness when he blew the whistle on Trump for extorting Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskye; Trump sought to offer military assistance in fighting the Russian invaders in exchange for Zelenskye’s willingness to dig up dirt on Hunter Biden.
At left we see Vindman’s summary of the difference between the two U.S. presidential candidates.
Tagged with: Trump and Biden
Pure Scientific Research
Here’s a short video that a reader sent me in which Neil deGrasse Tyson explains the importance of pure research, i.e., theoretical scientific research, normally in physics, performed without an eye towards the development of anything of purpose.
He pointed out that one of Einstein’s equations laid the groundwork for the laser, which eventually became the technology by which we scan our UPC codes when we buy our consumer products, although Einstein (obviously) wasn’t contemplating that at the time.
It’s an interesting topic, to be sure. In 2011, I interviewed Dr. Martin Perl, an aging genius who, at the time, was running the Stanford Linear Accelerator, after having won the Nobel Prize in physics for discovering an elementary particle, the tau lepton.
I happened to ask him about the practical application of his life’s work, and he told me flatly, “There is none.”
I was stunned, and I immediately began to stammer to correct my mistake, ” Oh, let me ask this a different way. Isn’t there a chance that something you and your graduate students are doing could eventually have some sort of practical implication?” He replied, again to my astonishment, “Not one in a million.”
Hey, I’m not a particle physicist, so I’m not in a position to argue, but it does seem a bit weird that what we’re learning about the core components of the universe couldn’t possibly have some future application in our lives.
Tagged with: science
U.S. Supreme Court Has the Nation’s Back to the Wall
Every American should be terrified of what’s happening within the U.S. Supreme Court–in particular with the presidential immunity case, in which our nation has been refashioned into a monarchy.
Tagged with: U.S. Supreme Court Has the Nation's Back to the Wall
Progress in Renewable Energy
Someone asked me the other day what level of progress we’re making in phasing out fossil fuels in favor of renewable energy. My response to this question hasn’t changed much in the 15 years I’ve been studying this subject: as shown in the graph here, we’re definitely making progress in terms of decarbonizing the grid and the light-duty transportation sector.
A more important question is this: If this trend is extrapolated, and eventually takes on the more difficult-to-address sectors, e.g., commercial aviation and ocean-going cargo freight, will this be sufficient to avert the worst consequences of climate change?
The answer is that no-one knows. Personally, I doubt it, in the absence of some major technological breakthrough.
Our civilization consists of 200+ sovereign nation-states, that have shown essentially zero interest in coming together to address this existential threat.
Tagged with: Progress in Renewable Energy
Those Oblivious Americans
I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way at the start of each football season. The planet is on fire, and Americans everywhere are huddled around their huge TV screens watching the Packers take on the Rams.
Tagged with: the planet is on fire
