Hydrogen Production and Sosei Advantage (via Water Team)

I loved this article. It was not only informative but it took some fairly difficult science and made it seem simple.

Of course, I have the secondary motive of contributing to a better energy future. This is one of many kinds of technology that are inevitable in a world where fossil fuel is becoming more expensive and harder to get.

I have read a number of the posts from this site. Many of them are about water and water supplies. This is a site for any one interested in the field. I liked it.

James Pilant

  Image via Wikipedia Today, there are  numerous efforts to produce  hydrogen gas for environmentally friendly energy applications which either require expensive reactants, reagents, catalysts or other energy sources.  Some emit other harmful gases or  result in other undesirable consequences from extended, extensive use.  Here is a video which offers clear insight into why Dr. Fukai’s Sosei Water is in a keystone position to connect society … Read More

via Water Team

Creative Space (via Project CSR)

At one point the author talkes about life changes. There have been some major ones in her life. And then she says at one point these words, “I left my career, changed cities, left my community. I wouldn’t advise this radical restructuring. Yet it was necessary for me. I’d been so malformed over the years of being determined by others that I needed space to create, to build my own structures.”

I very much disagree. If at all possible, do what she did, leave your career, change cities, and get a new community.

We all need to break the bonds of our lives and form our own personalities and grab desperately on to the possibilities of a life of meaning, a path with heart in it.

How many of you have gone back to your high school reunion and listen to the guests discuss how high school was the best part of their lives. I remember some vaguely pleasant hours but no whole days. I started having a real life when I became a full adult. I have made many bad decisions and quite a few good ones, but the best one was not to stay in the pattern laid out for me in the communities I grew up in.

I do a job I love, teaching, and I fight to change the world.

That’s not what they taught me. I was supposed to conform and I don’t.

Now, once you have disagreed with a writer (and in the first paragraph no less) you are compelled by custom to do a kind of rain dance of stomping on the rest of the article. Nothing could be further from my intent. I loved the blog entry and the writing in it.

I, old man that I am, thinks she should be more willing to take the example of her life and say, “You ought to do this too!” She didn’t just make the correct decision to leave her community – she made the courageous decision. I don’t think she gives herself enough credit.

This is a good article from a thoughtful writer. I went down the list of her last six entries and that intelligence and commitement is evident in all of her writing. It’s one of those blogs that might very well merit a place in your bookmarks or favorites.  — Project CSR.

James Pilant

“Creation is pleasure and torture at the same time. It’s trying to make something out of nothing. It’s a birth of some sort. Sometimes it’s like pulling a piano out of a swamp. Sometimes it’s like walking on air. The torture of that nothing-space in front of you, and the pure elation of filling that space with something good—it’s one of life’s great juxtapositions. I’m grateful for that—the torture and the pleasure.” Zooey Deschanel I used to thi … Read More

via Project CSR

on walking the walk. (via bee thousand)

How much to give? And who to give it to?

The eternal questions of those fortunate to have enough resources to give.

Here is a good discussion of a person trying to make the right charitable choices.

(In the United States, not getting your money diverted to private pockets when giving is very difficult. Scam artists masquerade under the sweetest and most persuasive names. They love names like veteran, children, etc. Be very careful who you give your money to and remember, the most important factor is what proportion of the charity’s contributions actually go to the charitable purpose. If you can’t find that out after a few minute web search, you are better off buying lottery tickets. In both cases your money is lost, but with the lottery, you know up front that your money is gone for no purpose.)

James Pilant

Special thanks to bee thousand.

So far, my dissertation research has consisted mostly in talking the talk but not yet walking the walk. But I’ve mulled over this for sort of a long time now and think I’ve finally come close to a decision regarding my participation in Peter Singer’s The Life You Can Save plan (which is tied to his work on charity, which is sort of a central focus of my dissertation research). The algorithm which Singer recommends is donating 1% of your annual in … Read More

via bee thousand

on walking the walk. (via bee thousand)

How much to give? And who to give it to?

The eternal questions of those fortunate to have enough resources to give.

Here is a good discussion of a person making those choices.

(In the United States, not getting your money diverted to private pockets when giving is very difficult. Scam artists masquerade under the sweetest and most persuasive names. They love names like veteran, children, etc. Be very careful who you give your money to and remember, the most important factor is what proportion of the charity’s contributions actually go to the charitable purpose. If you can’t find that out after a few minute web search, you are better off buying lottery tickets. In both cases your money is lost, but with the lottery, you know up front that your money is gone for no purpose.)

James Pilant

Special thanks to bee thousand.

So far, my dissertation research has consisted mostly in talking the talk but not yet walking the walk. But I've mulled over this for sort of a long time now and think I've finally come close to a decision regarding my participation in Peter Singer's The Life You Can Save plan (which is tied to his work on charity, which is sort of a central focus of my dissertation research). The algorithm which Singer recommends is donating 1% of your annual in … Read More

via bee thousand

Reap the Whirlwind (via Sects and Violence in the Ancient World)

Fantastic. Exactly. Disasters are not harbingers of the Apocalypse, the are (usually) natural phenomenon. What do they demand of us – that we act in a spirit of brotherhood, with compassion.

It is incredible that people who are taken seriously in some quarters consider compassion as a negative, a damaging idea that handicaps the intelligent and entrepreneurial.

But compassion is not a negative, it is one of the basic pillars of a civilized society. Civilization is propelled by cooperation and due consideration for the status of others.

Let us do what we can.

I recommend you look at some of the other writing on this web site, Sects and Violence in the Ancient World.

James Pilant

Something seems to be absent. The blazing rhetoric of televangelists and others proclaiming the wrath of God on New Orleans when Katrina blew ashore are strangely silent as a massive outbreak of tornadoes has ripped through the Bible Belt. Hundreds have unfortunately died as nature’s most severe weather-weapon has raked the south. In an apo … Read More

via Sects and Violence in the Ancient World

Free Speech Friday: Harvey Fineberg: Are we ready for neo-evolution? (via Writing Success Program at UCLA)

The Third Choice – I think that would be a great name for a book on the subject. The third choice of mankind being taking control of our own evolution: neo-evolution.  We will take charge of our own evolution. It is inevitable. Probably, the United States, as it gradually  becomes an intellectual and scientific backwater, will pass legislation forbidding that kind of science. In a nation where science is continually overrode by religious zealots challenging evolution or attacked by industry front groups as if scientists were some kind of rationalist cult, you can expect to wind up as thoroughly second rate in the sciences.

But it will be done. it will be a pity that new form of humanity will be Polish, Chinese, Ukranian, but not American. But we can watch and fear as they race past us.

James Pilant

About this talk: Medical ethicist Harvey Fineberg shows us three paths forward for the ever-evolving human species: to stop evolving completely, to evolve naturally — or to control the next steps of human evolution, using genetic modification, to make ourselves smarter, faster, better. Neo-evolution is within our grasp. What will we do with it? As I browsed the front page of TED.com this morning, the nerd inside of me immediately h … Read More

via Writing Success Program at UCLA

Ethics vs Modern Economic Realities (via thenewgoodlife)

I would like to have a try at answering the question posed by the author of this post.

It seems to me that a great many of the population are in your position – unable to have a full range of choices in where they buy things. There are many choices in where to buy goods and many of those businesses do things that are immoral or unethical. We would prefer to shop elsewhere.

When a firm is unethical or immoral, it often develops a competitive advantage that makes its products cheaper, in many cases much cheaper.

And I don’t think you have to think very hard before you can think of one of the worst offenders.

If you are in a poor economic situation, buy where you can. There is no point in damaging your health or your family.

Ethics requires action but all choices are never available to us.

So, when one avenue of action is denied us, we seek others. Here we have regulatory agencies, representative government and public advocacy. There is also investigative journalism but this is denied most of the public.

Your most likely remaining options are encouraging awareness by blogging, etc.

I don’t want to try to explain in any detail what you will want to decide yourself, which is what’s your best options?

There are many places where total ethics are impossible by one reason or another, you can still fight the good fight.

We do what we can.

James Pilant

A question for you, is it possible to maintain ethical shopping practices on a budget?  I have been trying for the last year to maintain an equilibrium between these two ideals, to buy products that are as local as possible and ethically manufactured by companies with strong ethical and environmental practices, yet doing so within fairly tight budget.  And I would say I was doing pretty well until recently.  In my efforts to meet these goals I di … Read More

via thenewgoodlife

Adequate backup power at US nukes? NRC chairman not sure (via robertsingleton)

This is disturbing. Some American power plants use batteries? Don’t earthquakes, tornadoes and floods damage those pretty easily? How long are the batteries good for?

A good number of American plants are as old as the Fukushima plants and based on a virtually identical design. If backup power is not a sure thing and the heat in the reactor goes to a certain point we have hydrogen which can and does cause explosions. If the heat is much worse we get a meltdown. Backup power is an important issue because even when you shut down the power in a reactor it takes some time for the temperature to fall.

James Pilant

The Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch just ran an article in which Gregory Jakzcko questioned the readiness of U.S. nuclear power plants to operate in the event of a loss-of-power accident like the one that caused a partial meltdown at Fukushima. MarketWatch reported: In a meeting of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko said existing standards for emergency power might not be “reasonable” given the damage that major cata … Read More

via robertsingleton

My Cable is Fixed – I’m Able to Work from Home

My cable company hustled out to my home and fixed the cable. It was a lightning strike that killed the cable links and the cable box. That’s pretty minimal damage from that much voltage. It could have been much worse.

So, I’m back at full work load. I can teach my classes, grade papers, keep my blog up and just generally stay even.

Thank to everyone who kept on reading the blog, even when there was less than usual on it.

James Pilant

Fukushima in Alabama (Averted) (via Say It Ain’t So Already)

I believe that there are a great many problems with nuclear plants in the United States that we do not hear about. This posting supports my point of view.

Why, if reported at all, are these considered local stories? A nuclear disaster renders hundreds, possibly thousands of square mile uninhabitable for the forseeable future. How much of a disaster do you have to have for the American news media to give it priority over the dissolute royal family of England?

Good article. Thanks to Say It Ain’t So Already.

James Pilant

It is so, so telling that this news has not been part of the coverage of the terrible tornadoes in Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia yesterday: A nuclear power plant in Alabama that lost power after violent thunderstorms and tornadoes on Wednesday will be down for days and possibly weeks but the backup power systems worked as designed to prevent a partial meltdown like the disaster in Japan. The Browns Ferry nuclear power plant, one of the biggest … Read More

via Say It Ain’t So Already