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