The technical term is "ACM-R5 Amphibious Snake-Like Robot," but I call it "more proof that we should fear the inevitable invasion of Japanese-designed Chinese Robot Overlords."

Even better then the dancing robots of yore. We're falling behind the curve all over the place here in the US, it seems.

Get Your Learn On, Part Deux:

One persistent myth about biomass is that it takes more energy to produce fuels from biomass than the fuels themselves contain. In other words, that it is a net energy loser. In fact, current ethanol production uses corn, one of the most energy-intensive crops, and then uses just the kernels from the corn plant, and not even the entire kernel. Even so, this process yields 50 percent more energy than it takes to make the ethanol, so it is a net gainer.

Nonetheless, we could do much better. By making ethanol from energy crops, we could obtain between four and five times the energy that we put in, and by making electricity we could get perhaps 10 times or more. In the future, to make a truly sustainable biomass energy system, we would have to replace fossil fuels with biomass or other renewable fuels to plant and harvest the crops.

Another important consideration with biomass energy systems is that biomass contains less energy per pound than fossil fuels. This means that raw biomass typically can't be cost-effectively shipped more than about 50 miles before it is converted into fuel or energy. It also means that biomass energy systems are likely to be smaller than their fossil fuel counterparts, because it is hard to gather and process more than this quantity of fuel in one place. This has the advantage that local, rural communities -- and perhaps even individual farms -- will be able to design energy systems that are self-sufficient, sustainable, and perfectly adapted to their own needs.

I dunno about those ethanol numbers. One thing a lot of people forget to calculate is that we use petroleum products when making fertilizers. That's right: we treat our sewage and cesspool our animal waste so that it can re-enter the water supply, and we pump dead organic matter out of the ground in the middle east to make stuff to spread on our crops so they'll grow better.

Yeah, that's fucking market efficiency for ya.

You need to know science.

That's an animation from the Union of Concerned Scientists (who just leapfrogged most of the polical pack of 2006, son), which explains how the blast of a "bunker busting" nuke attack on one of Iran's remote nuclear facilities could still kill 3 million, and put ten times that up for a fatal cancer risk.

We have got to stop the hating. Found this via Billmon, who's apparently been raised from his slumber by all this

Pass it on

Sunday wasted away on work and dithering. The newly painted room carries and aura of accomplishment though. Also on the upside: I informed the Belle de Park Slope that I would probably be spending some/all of the summer months in the State of Jefferson. Unsurprisingly, she was unsurprised. Tough girl. Like that.

The spring has arrived, and it seems that the wheels are in motion again.

It's 70 degrees. I slept in late. I'm missing the alleycat (unsanctioned bicycle street race) that Frank invited me to in DUMBO. I'm drinking some coffee and some OJ and thinking about how much work I should try to get done and when I should call the Belle du Mois.

I'm thinking about getting started painting my room, because even if I bail out of here at the end of May I still want to do it. It'll make it a nicer room, and it's something I've wanted to do, and I already bought the paint and everything. (Update: I did it!)

I'm wondering when my generation is going to start getting its shit together. Probably not for another four or five years, but there's lots and lots of groundwork to be laid in the mean time. Thinkin' about that old tyme corpulent populism. Thinkin' about how spreading the internet all over the planet in the next 50 years could be the key to lasting world peace: when people can connect directly, it makes it a lot harder to gin up the war fever.

I'm thinkin' about the summer of Jefferson.

Among other things, I've been thinking about that idea for having pr0n support "The Foundation."

It's vitally important that as many aspects of what we do are independently and sustainably funded. It's also true that from a political perspective, straight white males are the backbone of almost everything evil. I've been thinking there's synergy here.

So:

1) Prontrepreneurial site lets anyone run their own porno operation, keep the legal rights to their content and the lions share of the net profits. Has all the functionality of your standard 3rd-wave stuff (community/networking, memebers-only torrents, etc). Some small portion (10%?) goes to funding projects and other stuff. The goodstorm business model, but with smut.

2) One of the projects will be an attempt to push some of the best and most tasteful content onto politically impressionable young white males, but packaged within the context of a "lifestyle" website which espouses our own social values. Like playboy in its heyday. Kind of non-misogynist-consumer-zombie version of Maxim, but we show nipples.

3) The magazine (which I like to call "Corpulent Populism") also becomes a showcase for other Foundation Funded projects.

And now I want to go outside and tune up my bike. So I will.

Fuckin' a! www.royband.com. These guys are classic. They hit the comic nerve exploited by Napoleon Dynamite more than 5 years ago (shit, has it been that long?). I saw them live in the basement at the House of Rock &anp; Roll, where my friends Luke and Tom and Chris and John Henry and Max -- and some otheres no doubt -- lived, at a show/party that featured mostly punk and metal bands and a couple kegs of beer. They brought their own ironing board to set up the Casio on. The crowd sang along. It was a good time.

Do yourself a favor and check it out: www.royband.com.

Apropos the post below about the (in)ability of debate to do anything to alter our nation's course towards or away from war with Iran, I'm still going to post about it. If you want some good background, listen to this bit from Sy Hersh on Fresh Air. Chock full of facts.

Out here on the internets, some think it's hip to compare the president of Iran to Hitler. The impetus is that a few neo-nazis in Germany are rallying in support of Iran, but really I think it is about ginning up support for a war. I think that's stupid.

Granted, it's not quite as moronic as comparing Howard Dean to Der Feurer, which happened last December after he put forward the view (now conventional wisdom) that we can no longer "win" in Iraq. No, it's smarter than that. Unfortunately, it is also more dangerous.

Let's nip this shit in the bud. Let's keep it real. What real fucking significance is there to a few asshole skinheads in Germany doing their usual crap? Zero. That doesn't make invoking WWII and the Holocaust apt, it makes it crass.

Wot-wot? Goodmin's Law, sucka. We gots to stop the hating.

Given the total worldwide costs and consequences of an aggressive attack on Iran -- which would be massive, just think about it -- the idea seems like a loosing proposition even through the most steely realpolitik, especially considering that there is not even any immediacy to the threat.

There are plenty of players who have skin in the game. Perhaps when we have a head of state capable of, you know, conducting diplomacy, progress might be made. There's still plenty of time.

Do people really think that Iran would give up it's existence in order to nuke Israel? Ahmadinejad may be many things, but he's not crazy. He's not even Kim-Jong-cooky. He's a populist head of state who's well connected and has no desire to kill himself or cause his nation and people to be annihilated.

But suppose diplomacy really is useless. If nothing changes, in 5 to 10 years, Iran may have a nuclear weapon, which they'd be pretty unlikely to use offensively. The far more likely logic for acquiring nuclear arms for these smaller nations is deterrence against conventional attack from a superior external force.

Let's not feed that paranoia any more, eh?

Tracking the possibility of an upcoming air-war with Iran (which might or might not include "bunker busting" nuclear weapons and would be followed by who knows what), I think one of the most discouraging things is that after the past three years I really don't feel like there's much I can do about it.

Glenn Greenwald: Does the debate over Iran matter?

[W]e can have all the lofty and vigorous debates we want over whether a military offensive against Iran is desirable, prudent, disastrous, crazy, etc. But ultimately, nothing we think - or our representatives in Congress think - really matters, because these decisions, under this administration, are "for the President alone to make." We could refuse to authorize this military offensive, or even enact legislation banning it, and none of that would matter in the slightest. It's worth remembering that in our country today, the President is the "sole organ" in all such matters, and he has full, limitless, and un-limitable authority to do whatever he wants.

If the administration really resolves internally - whether for political reasons or bloodlust or some crazed Steyn-like beliefs or any combination of those or other motives - to attack Iran, is there any doubt that they will do that no matter how much opposition there is? One thing is clear - they believe they have the power and authority to do that unilaterally, and that they need no further authorization of any kind beyond the President's will.

This is where we're at. It might be an interesting showdown if Bush went to Congress for some kind of authorization, but short of a truly massive and resounding rebuke, I don't think our "representatives" really have any power here. Given that a strike on Iran would be calculated to maximally improve the GOP's changes of retaining control of the House and Senate, I think the majority party would play along.

As for we the people, well, if we had mass protests that were even larger than the current immigration rallies, maybe something might happen, but I think that kind of turnout is unlikely. Roll that 9/11 b-reel, crank up the fear machine, talk about mushroom clouds and how "they" can't be trusted, and a cricial mass of the citizenry will go along initially. Even if mass protests were to happen, given the nature of the Media (who will likely cheerlead any march to war) and the Bush Administration (which, we must remember, considers protesting citizens a kind of "focus group") and the continuing disconnect between Establishment Democrats and the now-majority of Americans who are (with regard to Iraq at least) anti-war, I think it's doubtful that such demonstrations would do anything to alter the course of events.

It's in pappi's hands, baby. This is what you get.

New version of Democracy, the internet TV app from those revolutionaries in Worcester. It should work great for getting a lot of interesting indie content, and if you feel like it's your right to watch regular TV online (like I do) there are lots of torrentfeeds around for your electronic civil disobediencing pleasure.

Good to see these things are coming along.

New version of Democracy, the internet TV app from those revolutionaries in Worcester. It should work great for getting a lot of interesting indie content, and if you feel like it's your right to watch regular TV online (like I do) there are lots of torrentfeeds around for your electronic civil disobediencing pleasure.

Good to see these things are coming along.