Fracking seems to have slain this resources issue, once and for all.
Or maybe not. Some Peak Oilers, enablers of the hottest meme of 2005, are still out there. They’re just biding their time, sure as shootin’ that their pet issue will return to haunt humanity and send us all back to the horse-n-buggy era: few medicines and consumer goods made of wood and paper.
Environmentalism is a religion, you know?
Via Instapundit.
Posted in Blogosphere, Obsessions, Science/Engineering, Texana, The Economy
Tagged peak oil
You may recall the concept, but you may not have realized that it would entail the creation of a major American industry, employing thousands of astronauts in geosynchronous orbit around the earth and many thousands more people on the ground. NASA, of course, has studied it in detail.
There’s even a pretty good scifi novel about the rigors of the orbital work on something similar. Not that we should expect the First Church of Environmentalism and their political cronies to support it. On that score, the greenie weenies are in bed with the oil & gas companies who would almost certainly oppose it as well.
Posted in Blogosphere, Science/Engineering, Space, The Economy
Tagged Orbital Decay, solar power satellites
Amazing what can be done with computer-control and composites, such as this flying prototype fighter-bomber supposedly adapted from Star Trek’s Klingon “bird of prey.” It reportedly flew 40 times in the late 1990s as a demonstrator and now is on display at the USAF museum in Dayton, Ohio.
Posted in Science/Engineering, War Without End
Tagged Boeing Bird of Prey, Klingons, Star Trek
“The city of Portland, OR will empty a 38-million gallon reservoir after a teenager allegedly urinated in it, according to the Associated Press. It’s the second time in three years that Portland is flushing its [open-air] Mount Tabor reservoir after a urine-related incident.”
ArsTechnica says it shows a “tenuous grasp of science.”
That’s diplomatic.
Via Instapundit.
Posted in Blogosphere, Science/Engineering, The Culture
Tagged airhead central, ArsTechnica, Instapundit, Portland urine case
It’s a staple of some science fiction, the recycling of human urine on a spaceship to keep the crew supplied with drinking water.
Now Wichita Falls wants to go half-way: treating so-called gray-water, toilet flushes—but not the actual urine—for drinking water.
Drought is normal in Texas, but with recent population increases—all those victims of the Democrat economy looking for jobs—the wages of drought are getting serious.
UPDATE: Lubbock and Big Spring are already building treatment plants to do the same thing.
MORE: Austin also is considering it.
Posted in Obamalot, Science/Engineering, Texana, Weather/Climate
It’s early to tell, and I’m still not quite finished transferring files from my old ‘puter via flash drive. But, so far, I think Windows 8.1 is a pain in the rear. Pity I had to leave XP. But it was necessary and I figured I might as well go all the way.
Like all big OS products, including “virtuous” Apple, 8.1 has all these arcane little programs running that it dares you to figure out how to alter or get rid of.
Such as the “tiles” on the “start” page, before the start, actually, and/or desktop pages. It’s cute, but it’s wired to stuff I don’t want, like Bing search and Bing news, i.e. Al Reuters, et al.
Still working on switching the tiles to Google and FoxNews. If I can’t, it’s bye-bye tiles. Finally got the email working. Thunderbird. 8.1 has an aversion to POP servers, though. Wants you to go on the cloud. Security, I suppose.
UPDATE: A week in and it’s still hassling me. Even Dell dropped the ball. I had to Google the new computer to figure out how to open the DVD drive. Geez Louise.
Posted in Evolution, Rancho Roly Poly, Science/Engineering, The Culture
Tagged Leaving XP, Windows 8.1
That’s where we live, on one of the targets in the shooting gallery referred to as the solar system. Fortunately we’re a very small target. Nevertheless:
“The sensor readings show that 26 explosions more powerful than a kiloton of TNT have been detected since 2001, ‘all of which are due to asteroid impacts,’ said former astronaut Ed Lu, the foundation’s CEO.”
Meanwhile, our political hacks mainly work on stuff for which they can collect get-rich-quick bribes. And they whack the space budget because the rube-preoccupied masses ain’t much interested in space anymore. So, one of these days…
UPDATE: Those 26 together didn’t come close to equaling this one, which would get everyone’s attention. If anyone was left to pay attention.
MORE: Russia seems to be seeing more than most countries and Lu & Co. plan to build and launch a telescope for advance warning.
Posted in Science/Engineering, Space
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 