Electric Cars

Estimates vary as to how much the Iraq war has costs the US, but in general 500 billion seems to be a conservative estimate.

Electric Cars:

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car)

AC induction motors are very efficient. Electromechanical transmission is what the big locomotives use to move mile long coal trains.

The Disabled:

People with disabilities who get around very efficiently and quietly using electric wheel chairs and the like really bother me. They are mocking the hydrocarbon economy and blood for oil politics. I think that if the consumer public isn’t allowed to have transportation that efficient, neither should the disabled. If electric motors aren’t good enough for cars, why are they good enough for locomotives and the disabled? I think they should all have their electric driven transports replaced with small, loud and polluting engines.

Electric Cars and Standard Oil:

If we look at the applications of electric motors for the very large and the very small we find they are suitable to both tasks. Electric motors are not only more efficient than ICE; they also have fewer moving parts resulting in more reliable service. Where efficiency AND reliability is necessary there you will find an electric motor.

Why then do we still use internal combustion engines to go to the store or the mall or to work or home?

Explanation (generic): The big oil companies know there is still a lot of oil in the ground. They make money by selling that oil, and they control our politics. Also, they control the automobile manufacturing companies. At the level of production they won’t allow alternatives because it’s bad for business. It goes without saying that they won’t allow the political order to countermand their striving for profit. The average consumer does not have the means to make a vehicle, so she has to purchase a means of transportation from what the market provides. Since the market only provides one type of transport medium (ICE), the consumer has to accept that.

THCA Synthase YEAST!!!

Finals are finally over!

The prohibition of alcohol is an impossible task because yeast catalyses the synthesis of alcohol. Basically anyone so motivated can, with a little knowledge, ferment their own beverages.

According to this article, http://www.nisr.or.jp/englishHP/report2004/NISR04taura.pdf:

Through simple genetic manipulation a Japanese scientist has coaxed tobacco plant and yeast cultures to express a “THCA synthase enzyme.” THCA, tetrahydrocannabinolic acid, is decarboxylated upon heating into the primary psychoactive molecule of cannabis, THC.

If such GM yeast cultures were robust enough and became available through the bio-tech industry to non-industry enthusiasts, it could in theory make the production of an illicit narcotic (THC) about as easy as making moonshine. (One other vital component is missing: a gene sequence for the synthesis of cannabigerolic acid.)

My question: what government agency should be appointed the task of overseeing GM organisms so things like this don’t become publicly accessible? Can the civilian authorities control GM yeast once the “genie is out of the bottle?” The patent itself explains in detail how the THCA synthase expression factor was spliced into a substrate organism, the mechanics of which are not beyond UCA biology dept.’s capabilities.

Currently it is possible to order GM organisms that express desired gene sequences over the internet. Although the criteria I have outlined for one such species is specific, and assuming some initial high cost, self-sustaining cultures could replicate at little or no cost indefinitely.


Directions:
Take 2 liters of water, boil and saturate with cane sugar until no more sugar dissolves. Place saturated sugar solution into 2 L clean plastic milk jugs or water jugs. Add THCA synthase expressing yeast. Be sure to allow for release of CO2. Wait one week. Add more sugar and yeast as needed.

Mark Twain

Mark Twain called the Book of Mormon "chloroform in print."

I wonder if anyone can verify this?

Strattera

Started Strattera 18mg on Nov 2nd, worked up to 25 mg, then 40 mg. Discontinued due to side effects which include:

Chronic dry mouth
hypertension
rapid heart rate
insomnia
too easily awakened
appetite suppression
dysphoria
suicidal ideation
psychotic ideation

Withdrawal is mild and includes severe bout of suicidial ideation, irritability, dysphoria and fatigue.

Update: Withdrawal is more than mild. Profusive cold sweat, flu like symptoms such as headache, chills, fever, restlessness, lack of appetite, slight dizziness, rapid heart rate.

Despair, failure, criticism

UCA is an ugly place now. It's become impersonal and congested. The track is now a parking lot. The hyper center is unusable owing to the excess enrollment. The library is always full. The town of Conway has become bloated with failed dreamers, middle class peons full of contempt. I can't participate in UCA anymore. The dream has been beaten to death. The indulgences have been saturated, and then taken one step further. If things weren't working I would just double the effort. Now the futility of that effort is plain before me.


My failure is the failure to deepen and expand my mental reserves of energy. I suspect my failure is chronic, widespread, and conditioned. The desire to succeed has not been overriding. My personal discipline faltered and my intellectual integrity was routed by petty desire. I am not alone. The burden of intellectual reflectivity invariably leads to this despair.

The price of a socially proscribed, authorized and guaranteed existence is the cost of all vital energy. This fact is embedded in the social unconscious but neurotic fear prevents conscious recognition. And yet despite this denial all those students who never question still suffer. All those students who are content to graze prefabricated ideals must be given a sign. The problem is acute: what must be done when they inevitably become drained of élan vital? All those students having been raised on television and hamburgers must submit their own idealism to be ground into sausage for the bourgeoisie. A spectacle is needed to substitute for the collective denial of flourishing.

UCA constantly organizes the spectacle. The spectacle is a proxy for the energy no individual can ascertain. It is designed to suggest a collective surplus at the heart of the educational enterprise. This event is portrayed as being so ecstatic that it occasionally erupts into choreographed and ritualized violence. To an intellectual, pacifist and ultimate Frisbee aficionado the effort compares only with the SUV for sheer hubris.
The enterprise of patriarchal sports is at once both an affirmation of the subjugation of the feminine and the defeat of the other who is efficient, less brutal and more constrained by common sense.

The spectacle is implicitly racists insofar as the sport gives rise to a broad system of financial subsidy and reproductive opportunity. The physical demands of labor and the overwhelming severity of modern war have eliminated the need for a physically robust phenotype. Only the spectacle of mainstream sports gives occasion to justify the perpetuation and sustainment of this type of human. Plato's republic is mirrored at the level of the high school and college game. Moral: selective breeding is encouraged; humans are products of the systems they inhabit.

I came to college with middle class values, middle class ideals. Somewhere along the way I began to yearn for the American dream. Now that dream is over. Effigies have been burned. My energy is gone. My heart is broken. I am weary. I want to perish. Who has done this to me? Answer: academia.

Sub A

Substance A has a density of 1.096 g/ml

We convert Liters of Substance A to grams of Sub A

1 Liter x 1.096g/ml x 10^3 ml/L = 1096 grams Substance A

20 Percent of Aqeous solution containing Sub A is Sub A... sooo...

1096 x 80% = 876.8 g Sub A

Now we convert Sub A grams to milligrams

876.8 g Sub A x 1000mg/1g = 876800 mg of Sub A

Now we divide Sub A by 200mg/dose = 4384 dose Units Sub A

Lets back up a minute and assume less than 100% yield..

876.8 x 40% = 350.72 g Sub A x 1000/200 = 1753.6 dose Units Sub A

Caffeine and fatigue

So I have been experiencing some chronic fatigue lately and I am trying to track down the causative agent. Excluding the possibility of viral infection or parasitic agent (for want of practical means of determining presence of aforementioned theory) I am left with a usual suspect: caffeine.

I drink a lot of coffee lately to keep awake. But lately coffee just doesn't have that "kick." I think I may be stuck in a vicious cycle, or to put it another way I have reached the point of diminishing returns with the use of coffee.

Why do I think its coffee (more specifically caffeine) that's causing my chronic fatigue? Well, I wont bore you with an elaboration of my symptoms, but suffice it to say I normally get very tired during the day around noon or thereafter and am able to sleep for a few hours if allowed but sleep tends to be unrefreshing. This is troubling. I have noticed that since school started back I have been tired despite the lack of strenuous physical exertion. I drink a coffee in the morning and then maybe a couple at night.

Thankfully the Internet provides many fine technical/scientific answers that elaborate my predicament.

As I understand it Caffeine inhibits the decomposition of cAMP (Cyclic adenosine monophosphate) into AMP. cAMP is an important analog of ATP (and we should all know what that stands for by now).

According to wikipedia's fine article on cAMP:

"cAMP is a second messenger, used for intracellular signal transduction, such as transferring the effects of hormones like glucagon and adrenaline, which cannot get through the cell membrane. Its main purpose is the activation of protein kinases; it is also used to regulate the passage of Ca2+ through ion channels."

As can be inferred from the above the inhibition of so critical a substance in the human body over a prolonged period of time must surely result in changes both gross and subtle. One idea is that by inhibiting the breakdown of cAMP into AMP intracellular calcium stores become prematurely depleted, resulting in a cascading effect. Calcium dependent secondary messenger processes become less effective as a result. This is just one possibility, in fact there are many. In any case a good reason to take a break from coffee for a week and see if energy levels don't bounce back.

Calcium-Induced Calcium Release Contributes to Action Potential-Evoked Calcium Transients in Hippocampal CA1 Pyramidal Neurons

Biochemistry/Second Messenger

Cyclic_adenosine_monophosphate

Danny Glover's "Cahhp Killuz"

Lets say a .40 S&W Subsonic bullet moves at 1000 ft/sec.

So...

(1K ft)/Sec Converted to miles/hour

Equals 681.818 miles/hour

The speed of sound is approx: 340.29 meters/sec @ sea level

so...

340.29 meters/sec converted miles/hour

Equals 761.207 miles/hour






Killaz:

Subsonic .40 S&W/a>

Generation IV Nuclear power

Getting back to basics at the 5 directorate folks. Found this gem of a PDF that shows the various reactor designs that will meet future energy needs. Be careful, choose wisely. Our vote naturally goes to the HTGCR designs, but I'm also partial to Super critical H20 and CO2.

Idaho National Laboratories Future energy programs (PDF)

Smith and Wesson M&P .40

Great Demo of the M&P .40

M&P .40 review

Melonite Finish process

The economy of my Virginia trip...

Balanced equation:

2 C8H18 + 25 O2--> 16CO2 + 18H2O

According to my chemistry book 1 gal of C8H18 combust to produce 9.3 kg CO2.

Our trip to Virgina used 44 gals of gas (87 octane) so...

44 gals x .87 octane = 38. 28 gals octane x 9.3kg CO2 = 356.004 kg CO2.

This seems to make sense since 44 gallons of octane weighs about 124kg. Octane weights 5.85 lbs per gal. 5.85 x 44 gal = 257.4 lbs (116.75 kg).

So... 356 x 2 = 712 kg CO2 total produced for round trip.

Trauzl

Trauzl lead block test
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

Trauzl lead block test, also called Trauzl test or just Trauzl, is a test used to measure the strength of explosive materials. It was developed by Isidor Trauzl in 1885.

The test is performed by loading a 10 gram foil-wrapped sample of the explosive into a hole drilled into a lead block with specific dimensions. The hole is then filled with sand and the sample is detonated electrically. After detonation, the volume increase of the cavity is measured. The result is given in cm3 and is caled the Trauzl number of the explosive.

A variant of the test uses aluminium block.
This explosives-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trauzl_lead_block_test"

Categories: Explosives stubs | Explosives

Brisance

Brisance
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

Brisance is a measure of the rapidity with which an explosive develops its maximum pressure.

In addition to strength, explosive materials display a second characteristic, which is their shattering effect or brisance (from the French meaning to "break"), which is distinguished from their total work capacity. This characteristic is of practical importance in determining the effectiveness of an explosion in fragmenting shells, bomb casings, grenades, and the like. The rapidity with which an explosive reaches its peak pressure is a measure of its brisance. Brisance values are primarily employed in France and Russia.

A brisant explosive is one in which the maximum pressure is attained so rapidly that a shock wave is formed, and the net effect is to shatter material surrounding or in contact with it. Thus brisance is a measure of the shattering ability of an explosive.

The sand crush test is commonly employed to determine the relative brisance in comparison to TNT. No single test is capable of directly comparing the explosive properties of two or more compounds; it is important to examine the data from several such tests (sand crush, trauzl, and so forth) in order to gauge relative brisance. True values for comparison will require field experiments.

One of the most brisant conventional explosives is Cyclotrimethylene trinitramine (also known as RDX).

ACLU Seeks Information About Government Use of Brain Scanners in Interrogations

ACLU Seeks Information About Government Use of Brain Scanners in Interrogations (6/28/2006)

NEW YORK-- In the face of suspicions that the government is using cutting-edge brain-scanning technologies on suspected terrorists being held overseas or at home, the American Civil Liberties Union today announced that it has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with all the primary American security agencies.

"There are certain things that have such powerful implications for our society -- and for humanity at large -- that we have a right to know how they are being used so that we can grapple with them as a democratic society," said Barry Steinhardt, Director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Project. "These brain-scanning technologies are far from ready for forensic uses and if deployed will inevitably be misused and misunderstood."

The most likely technology to be used for anti-terrorism purposes is Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), which can produce live, real-time images of people's brains as they answer questions, view images, listen to sounds, and respond to other stimuli. Two private companies have announced that they will begin to offer "lie detection" services using fMRI as early as this summer. These companies are marketing their services to federal government agencies, including the Department of Defense, Department of Justice, the National Security Agency and the CIA, and to state and local police departments.



The ACLU's FOIA requests were filed yesterday with the Pentagon, NSA, CIA, FBI and Department of Homeland Security.

"These brain-scanning technologies have potentially far-reaching implications, yet uncertain results and effectiveness," said Steinhardt. "And we are still in our infancy when it comes to understanding the underlying processes of the brain that the scanners have begun to reveal. We do not want to see our government yet again deploying a potentially momentous technology unilaterally and in secret, before Americans have had a chance to figure out how it fits in with our values as a nation."

The ACLU’s FOIA request is available online at www.aclu.org/privacy/gen/26031res20060628.html.

A video of an ACLU-sponsored forum featuring experts discussing the use of fMRI as a “lie detector” is online at www.aclu.org/future.

Pruitt-Igoe and the End of Modernity

Pruitt-Igoe

"The federally funded Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis was designed by St. Louis architects George Hellmuth and Minoru Yamasaki in 1951. It was thought to be the epitome of modernist architechture--high-rise, "designed for interaction," and a solution to the problems of urban development and renewal in the middle of the 20th Century. Pruitt-Igoe opened in 1954 and was completed in 1956. Pruitt-Igoe included thirty-three, eleven story buildings on a 35 acre site just north of downtown St. Louis.

"These structures were no anomaly. Instead, the Pruitt-Igoe project was the product of a larger vision of St. Louis government and business leaders who wanted to rebuild their city into a Manhattan on the Mississippi. Other redevelopment schemes of the time, for example, placed middle- and high-income residents in buildings that actually rivaled Pruitt-Igoe in height and scale."

"There is, moreover, no evidence that redevelopment plans intended to make an all-black, all-poor enclave at DeSoto Carr, which had been a poor area housing both whites and blacks before it was razed. An early scheme would have produced a majority of middle-income black residents. The final plan designated the Igoe apartments for whites and the Pruitt apartments for blacks. Whites were unwilling to move in, however, so the entire Pruitt-Igoe project soon had only black residents." ("Why They Built the Pruitt-Igoe Project," Alexander von Hoffman, Joint Center for Housing Studies, Harvard University: http://www.soc.iastate.edu/sapp/PruittIgoe.html)."

Old Man's River City Project

Old Man's River City Project Wiki entry

I am writing an entry for Buck Fuller's unique and monolithic housing project.

A deep sociological examination of this project does not dismiss the design as impractical on grounds of scale or cost but rather social readiness of the would-be inhabitants.

Also Fuller has an institute:

Buckminster Fuller Institute

Type O Negative: Love you to Death Lyrics

3. Love You To Death

In her place one hundred candles burning
as salty sweat drips from her breast
her hips move and I can feel what they're saying, swaying
They say the beast inside of me's gonna get ya, get ya,get...

Black lipstick stains her class of red wine
I am your servant, may I light your cigarette?
Those lips smooth, yeah I can feel what you're saying, praying
They say the beast inside of me's gonna get ya, get ya, get...

I beg to serve, your wish is my law
Now close those eyes and let me love you to death
Shall I prove I mean what i'm saying, begging
I say the beast inside of me's gonna get ya, get ya, get..

Let me love you too
Let me love you to death

Hey am I good enough for you?
Hey am i good enough for you?
Am I?
Am I?
Am I good enough
for you?

Networks, Cells, Revolutions

The Business of Terror: Conceptualizing Terrorist Organizations
as Cellular Businesses

A Formal Characterization of Cellular Networks

"A cell is a distinct subgroup of actors within a larger cellular network. The presence of at least one cell is fundamental to a network’s distinction of being cellular—without at least one cell, a network is not cellular. Empirically, a cell often consists of relatively few actors and has a distinct topology that is effortless to identify visually. The actors in a cell can be partitioned into two distinct but intertwined subgroups, namely the cell-core and the cell-periphery."

The Complexity of Terrorist Networks

QUANTIFYING INSURANCE TERRORISM RISK

"If the ideas of swarm intelligence are applicable to any group of human beings, it would be to zealous and fanatical terrorists, bound together as one by the Islamic bond of brotherhood; as absolute as that shared by blood relatives. Such a terrorist group could not be adequately represented simply as a set of single-minded individuals, espousing a common cause. Much of their special strength resides in the unusual qualities of their collective swarm intelligence, which govern the group’s fearsome capability of executing extreme acts of terror and escaping prior detection. "

Jericho 941

I like the 941 for it's clean lines and the simple, yet robust modernization of the CZ-75 which is itself a robust copy of the venerable Browning High Power.

Wiki had this to say about the 941,

"A modified version of the Jericho 941 was the weapon of choice for Spike Spiegel, protagonist of the anime TV show Cowboy Bebop."

Jericho 941

Gunweek article on Jericho 941

Gunweek Magnum Research Industries, the makers of the Baby Eagle

On matters relating to intellectual honesty

It has been said that this blog practices revisionism. This is nonesense. All loyal blog readers should do well to denounce the petty agitation efforts of anti-blog subversives.

Only the petty diletantism of a revisionist would him or herself stoop to such base accusations. IN the interest of good taste, all claims to the contrary will not be tolerated. Now close ranks and get back in line. There will be no defection from the status qou. This band marches on.



In _The Poverty of Philosophy_, Marx wrote:

"The working class, in the course of development, will substitute for the old bourgeois society an association which will preclude classes and their antagonism, and there will be no more political power groups, since the political power is precisely the official expression of class antagonism in bourgeois society." (p.182, German edition, 1885)

" The state is a special organization of force: it is an organization of violence for the suppression of some class. What class must the proletariat suppress? Naturally, only the exploiting class, i.e., the bourgeoisie. The working people need the state only to suppress the resistance of the exploiters, and only the proletariat can direct this suppression, can carry it out. For the proletariat is the only class that is consistently revolutionary, the only class that can unite all the working and exploited people in the struggle against the bourgeoisie, in completely removing it."

-Lenin

Summer Reading

1.Finish "This Perfect Day" by Levin.

2. A biography of Reinhard Heydrich by Gunther Deschner.

3. Read all those chapters in Biology and Chemistry that I didnt read on account of laziness over the semester of Spring, 06.

4. "Society of Mind" by Marvin Minsky.

5. "Zen and the Brain" by Austin. (Mostly finished, about 300 pages to go).

6. "Megawatts and Megatons" by Garwin and some French author whose name escapes me right now.

7. "Being No one" by Thomas Metzinger.

8. "Breakdown of Will" by George Ainslie.

9. "Self-Deception" by Herbert Fingarette.

10. "Critical Path" by R. Buckminster Fuller.

Aldous Huxley

"Thought is the brain's three milliards
Of cells from the inside out.
Billions of games of billiards
Marked up as Faith and Doubt.

"My faith, but their collisions;
My logic, their enzymes;
Their pink epinephrine, my visions;
Their white epinephrine, my crimes.

"Since I am the felt arrangement
Of ten to the ninth times three,
Each atom in its estrangement
Must yet be prophetic of me."

Buckminster Fuller

The support of life on our planet consists of two kinds__metaphysical and physical. Both cosmic and terrestrial energetic regeneration, organic and inorganic, are physical; while the know-what of pure science and the know-how of applied science are both metaphysical. The know-what of science’s experimental evidence informs technology’s know-how to employ efficiently the substantive resources and synergetic metaphysical patterns progressively found to be operative in Universe. These are essential to the maintenance of life on board our planet as well as in mounting local-Universe exploring excursions from our mother-spaceship Earth.

http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/s03/p2600.html

Rules of the game

1. Only School
2. Only Study
3. Only Work
4. Only Sleep
5. No Friends
6. No Fun
7. Nowhere to go.
8. Nothing to do.

PS Bode Sule has Godel's Proof Book

Nootropics

Morning:

Glass of OJ (approx: 300ml)

Mixed w/ roughly 1g Piracetam, 650mg Choline Citrate, 500mg actyl-l-carnitine, 200-300mg centrophenoxine, optionally 100 mg aniracetam.

Effects: Good arousal but not pushy. Slight improvement in mental clarity, words come more easily, thoughts are more linear, attention span increase, more relaxed, easier to form concepts, simplify problems, etc. Strangely relaxed, a calm insight into the world is more accessible now.

Roughly day 3, and the first day I've tried the centrophenoxine (which I hold out the most hope for due to mechanism of action).

So far side effects practically nil, no headache, nausea, upset stomach, minor aches or anything associated with potential side effects so the therapeutic index for these substances is still seemingly high. Nootropics are supposed to increase mental clariety and stop or reverse aging. So far so good.

The ergot based nootropics I have yet to try. They represent the most experimental and potentially dangerous (w/ regards to side effects) class thus far. According to the research and literature, the most extreme benefits may derive from an ergot based nootropic like Hydergine. I know from certain past experinces that ergot derived mesolates produce neuro-vascular dialation and dopaminergic stimulation.

nootropics, "Gotta catch'em all"; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Nootropics

PARTY LEADERSHIP AND ELITE RECRUITMENT

Influence and prestige within the party power structure are directly associated with the rank order in which the members of the Central Committee are listed. Key posts in party, government, and economic organs are assigned; higher-ranking Central Committee members also are found in the armed forces, educational and cultural institutions, and other social and mass organizations. Many leaders concurrently hold multiple positions within the party, the government, and the military.

Source: http://countrystudies.us/north-korea/61.htm

Biochemistry, Pharmacology and Behavior

Another great Journal of Interest can be found @

Biochemistry, Pharmacology and Behavior

Also check out my modest contributions to wikipedia's endocannabinoid species;

URB754

URB597

Full Spectrum

Receptor Binding affinity for (6aR,9R)-N,N-diethyl-7-methyl-
4,6,6a,7,8,9-hexahydroindolo
[4,3-fg]quinoline-9-carboxamide

OPEN SOURCE WEB DESIGN WANTED

Working on an exciting project:

medstudentworld.org

We need an opensource web designer to help set up a site, the hosting is already taken care of but now what is needed is design. So far the front page is up. It would be nice if some opensource programmers out there who were interested in doing a good deed could contact me for possible contributions.

jumping spider wiring diagram

30,000 neurons wire the little spider. They do not have compound eyes. They can seperate prey from other spiders. They can jump, they have advanced gyrocscopic control abilities. We don't know how they work.

I am working very hard on Chemistry and math

This semester has me working over time. Actually, it's 13 hours and two labs a week. The pace is grueling. We are flying through the material. I am working hard and yet, for all my effort, it seems difficult to get traction. I have not been writing much, but intend to post more soon. For all my dear listeners out there, know that I am busy but will update soon.