Tuesday, November 2, 2010

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Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Electric Economy?




Today I saw an article on wired about transferring our oil based infrastructure to an electric based one using a business model similar to that of cell phones. The idea being to sell the cars cheaply and then charge for the batteries/electricity monthly or based on usage. Lengthy but a good read.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

One day..

I hope to have a similar video soon..

New seating arrangement

Finally something positive from the airlines...

Ethanol, an example of political meddling in markets

The crisis caused by incentivizing of Ethanol is plain to see. Not only is ethanol inherently less efficient than gasoline it also has almost just as many harmful environmental effects. But because of the efforts of the corn farmers and environmentalists politicians have gottn behind ethanol whole heartedly. This has resulted in tax breaks and subsidies for corn based ethanol production in the US while perversely also raising tariffs on Brazillian sugar cane based production. This has resulted in a food crisis on a global level. As farmers switch crops to enjoy the benefit of the subsidies and tax breaks, not only does corn become more scarce but also other staple crops because it is more profitable to produce corn. If we must switch to Ethanol based fuel shouldn't we do it based on solid economics? Brazillian sugar cane ethanol produces a higher yield than corn and has less effect on the food markets yet it is kept out (I feel I also should note that even Brazillian sugar cane has a pretty harmful effect on the environment due to the fact that rainforests are cleared to produce it). This new Green movement seems more about show than results.

Why Calories Don't Matter

Aka Everything you think you know is wrong. In this video Gary Taubes author of "Good Calories, bad Calories" goes through some of the data debunking the common misconception that fat and weight gain is a result of improper caloric balancing. Its simply not true, what is amusing is that this is not new information. This hypothesis was disproved as early as the 60's. It just goes to show how people can be locked into a certain paradigm which clouds their acceptance of any new ideas even when those ideas could be life changing.

Thursday, November 8, 2007