by Ian Punnett
The Watchman speaks
To those who seek
Some comfort in the night.
Some nameless chill,
Some fetid ill,
Has stolen sleep tonight.
On what it feeds
And where it breeds
May ne’er be brought to light.
And while not tamed,
It will be named --
The Watchman’s on tonight.
CRYPTONEWS!
Hey, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Santa Barbara residents how did it go switching off your lights for one hour in the first such organized bid in the United States to promote energy saving?
The Lights Out campaign in California follows similar initiatives in Sydney, Australia; London, England; and Paris, France earlier this year. California organizers said they planned a nationwide U.S. event in March 2009.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power said that if all of its 1.4 million customers turned off their lights for an hour, enough energy could be saved to power 2,500 homes for an entire year.Electricity companies are urging people to replace at least one of the lights they switch back on with an energy-saving fluorescent light bulb. I have several of the C. Crane LED light bulbs in my home. They save 97% of the power of a traditional bulb. Take that, flourescent lighting.
Why isn’t light bulb formally one word by now, 100% of the time? If doorknob is always one word and windowpane is always one word, why not lightbulb? Weird. Are we really so ready to confused light bulbs with tulip bulbs that most of the time they are still written as separate words?
Speaking of the perils of radiant light:
(AP) -- Would cockroaches survive a nuclear holocaust that killed everything else? That question is being tested this week at the nearby Hanford nuclear reservation by the team from the "Mythbusters" show on the Discovery Channel, which expects to air the episode in about four months.
The crew is using an irradiator in the basement of Hanford's 318 Building just north of Richland. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory usually uses the device to calibrate dosimeters, which measure radiation exposure to humans and animals, and to check for radiation damage of video cameras, fiber optic cables and other equipment.
Lab operators agreed to the research for purposes of science education and workers donated their time, in some cases using part of their vacation allotments.
On Thursday afternoon, Mythbuster’s cast members Grant Imahara and Tory Belleci were cramming their uncooperative critters into a specially built roach condo to be exposed in the irradiator.
"I had to put myself in quite the mind-set to do it," Byron said.
A scientific supply company sent 200 cockroaches for the tests, "all laboratory-grade, farm fresh," Imahara said.
A control group of 50 will get no radiation, 50 others will be exposed to 1,000 rad, a lethal load of radiation for humans, 50 will be exposed to 10,000 rad and the last 50 to 100,000 rad.
"Contrary to popular belief, not a significant amount of research goes into cockroach radiation," Imahara said.
Thank God Mythbusters is there for us. After this, I hope they get around to determining if a Hostess Twinkie really would last forever.
From Physorg.com:
One of the touted benefits of the futuristic US hydrogen economy is that the hydrogen supply—in the form of water—is virtually limitless. This assumption is taken for granted so much that no major study has fully considered just how much water a sustainable hydrogen economy would need.
Michael Webber, Associate Director at the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy at the University of Texas at Austin, has recently filled that gap by providing the first analysis of the total water requirements with recent data for a "transitional" hydrogen economy. While the hydrogen economy is expected to be in full swing around 2050 (according to a 2004 report by the National Research Council [NRC]), a transitional hydrogen economy would occur in about 30 years, in 2037.
At that time, the NRC predicts an annual production of 60 billion kg of hydrogen. Webber’s analysis estimates that this amount of hydrogen would use about 19-69 trillion gallons of water annually as a feedstock for electrolytic production and as a coolant for thermoelectric power. That’s 52-189 billion gallons per day, a 27-97% increase from the 195 billion gallons per day (72 trillion gallons annually) used today by the thermoelectric power sector to generate about 90% of the electricity in the US. During the past several decades, water withdrawal has remained stable, suggesting that this increase in water intensity could have unprecedented consequences on the linenatural resource and public policy.
The way I figure it, if every man woman and child in Atlanta started raising hamsters right now, the soon to be water-less South might have enough rodent power to run on a fly wheel big enough to generate some power by next year.
Meanwhile in the South:
Andre Eggelletion paid a visit to his aunt's grave site in Brownsville, FL on Wednesday. What he saw shook him to his core.
''My aunt's grave was open,'' he said. ``Someone had taken her skull and her rib cage and there were chicken feathers in the exposed casket.''
Those remains were located and will be re-interred.
The problems with traditionally black cemeteries have multiplied over the years: There are few unfilled burial plots to sustain the business. There is little money for maintenance or security. Many family members of the interred black pioneers, war veterans and others have migrated north and are no longer able to take care of their loved ones' graves.
As a result, many black graveyards have become targets of vandals, vagrants and midnight dumpers.
The same problem has played itself out across the American South. In some places, black cemeteries have been decreed landmarks. In others, they have been paved over.
Sounds like the plot of a few horror movies I know. And so does this:
From Physorg:
A US surgeon working on a "tele-health" breakthrough has devised a way for video game warriors to feel shots, stabs, slams, and hits dealt to their on-screen characters.
A vest designed by doctor Mark Ombrellaro uses air pressure and feedback from computer games to deliver pneumatic thumps to the spots on players' torsos where they would have been struck were they actually on the battlefields.
The "3rd Space" vest will make its US debut in November at a price of 189 dollars. It will be launched with the latest version of the first-person shooter game "Call of Duty" and a custom-made title.
"It was originally designed to give medical exams via the Internet to prisoners, the elderly, those in rural communities and other isolated people," the doctor said.
The medical version of the vest is more sophisticated, enabling doctors sitting at their computers to prod, poke and press patients' bodies from afar and get feedback on what they are virtually feeling.
Did somebody say, "virtual feeling"?
How long do you think it will take for the porn industry to get their hands on this?
Five minutes? Ten minutes? Yesterday?
I say, let’s just set our watches right now and time how long it will be until somebody designs "3rd space pants" that released with the new first person sex game, "Callgirl of Duty."
Finally, speaking of space:
Ellen Ast of the Albany Democrat-Herald reports:
Raye Laufer and her husband Derral of Lacomb, NY wants to know if anybody else saw two long, silver, bullet-shaped objects flying side-by-side across the sky. Neither object had lights or made a sound, Raye said, and they soon split up: One headed east, the other toward the northeast.
On Saturday, Sept. 22, the Laufers stepped outside to smoke cigarettes in the forested back yard of their Moran Lane home, nestled in a quiet valley among hills outside of town around 9 p.m.
The couple fixed their attention on two long, silver, bullet-shaped objects flying side-by-side across the sky before splitting up.
As Raye scanned the horizon to see where they went, she turned and saw what Derral had just spotted floating above treetops almost directly above their home.
"There was this orb," Raye exclaimed. A large object, glowing red and orange, silent, emitting what she says looked like sparks.
"It was beautiful," she remembers. Derral and Raye watched the object float in the same spot for about a minute, move over until it was directly over their roof, pause, then slowly journey north.
The incident continued to bother her — and pique her imagination.
She asked county and state law enforcement agencies if anyone called dispatch around the same time as the sighting.
No calls.
She posted a sign on a Lacomb bulletin board outside the town store, asking anyone who witnessed something to call her.
Still no calls.
"I know someone has to have seen it," she said.
She headed to the Internet for research. After she filed a report with the National UFO Reporting Center, a representative from that organization encouraged Raye to contact media.
"I used to joke about aliens," she said. "But there is something out there."
