Posts
A special ops agent is dropped onto an alien planet with the instructions to mess it up as much as possible. Officially the funniest terrorist's handbook ever.
Now this is a fun read. James Mowry is thrown on a planet full of aliens that humanity is warring with. his exact orders are to make things hard for the people of the planet and disrupt the world as much as possible. The way he goes about this follows a simple continuation of steps that results in an entire world in anarchy and disorder.
And it is really fun to read too. Following Mowry as he sows seeds of dissent, encourages rebellion but ultimately single handedly brings an entire planet to its knees with little more than stickers, some letters and about 5 murders, its great fun.
Also the author may have actually known people who did this kind of thing so there's always the fact that its basically a fictional retelling of WW2 Spec Ops.
Nems
On Nuclear power
I had a little thought yesterday and just got around to running the math. I wondered how much energy you could get if you converted all the nukes in the world into power station fuel.
The results are kind of interesting, unfortunately I've had to make some assumptions cause I guess they don't give out too much info on nuclear bombs out. As such this just concerns Uranium as fuel, which sucks because Plutonium is way better but our needs must I suppose.
The amount of Uranium in a nuclear bomb these days is unknown, but the best we can see is between 50kg and 10kg. For the sake of this we'll say they use 25kg (info from here). The amount of uranium used in a nuclear power plant is around 25tonnes every 2 years.
The number of nuclear weapons in the world is around 23,500 (from here). Assuming each of these are uranium weapons (nope but oh well) that comes to around 589,350kg of uranium.
Now, there's 1000kgs in 1 tonne, so that means there's around 23 refuels worth of fuel in nuclear weapons, which is 47 years worth of power from a nuclear reactor. Now this does'nt sound like too much but in 2009, a single nuclear power station produced around 12,300,000,000kWh worth of power (Info here). So that 47 years worth of power would come to 578,100,000,000kWh. Which is a decent amount.
Again this is making at terrible assumption that every nuclear reactor uses Uranium, every bomb is Uranium and I don't even take into account the amount of processing required to convert one kind of Uranium to another. I have'nt taken into account the potential for breeder reactors or reusing nuclear fuel either but I thought it was interesting nonetheless.
-Nems
P.S. Another book review on it's way.
The results are kind of interesting, unfortunately I've had to make some assumptions cause I guess they don't give out too much info on nuclear bombs out. As such this just concerns Uranium as fuel, which sucks because Plutonium is way better but our needs must I suppose.
The amount of Uranium in a nuclear bomb these days is unknown, but the best we can see is between 50kg and 10kg. For the sake of this we'll say they use 25kg (info from here). The amount of uranium used in a nuclear power plant is around 25tonnes every 2 years.
The number of nuclear weapons in the world is around 23,500 (from here). Assuming each of these are uranium weapons (nope but oh well) that comes to around 589,350kg of uranium.
Now, there's 1000kgs in 1 tonne, so that means there's around 23 refuels worth of fuel in nuclear weapons, which is 47 years worth of power from a nuclear reactor. Now this does'nt sound like too much but in 2009, a single nuclear power station produced around 12,300,000,000kWh worth of power (Info here). So that 47 years worth of power would come to 578,100,000,000kWh. Which is a decent amount.
Again this is making at terrible assumption that every nuclear reactor uses Uranium, every bomb is Uranium and I don't even take into account the amount of processing required to convert one kind of Uranium to another. I have'nt taken into account the potential for breeder reactors or reusing nuclear fuel either but I thought it was interesting nonetheless.
-Nems
P.S. Another book review on it's way.
Global WARNING MO LIKE
Man, its getting hotter huh? World is heating up and the polar ice caps are melting, penguins and polar bears are dying and soon our world is going to resemble a Wendys' frosty. I'm pretty scared guys. This is some serious shit. We need to cut back on our energy use and stop shoving so much terrible shit into the atmosphere.
Hahaha no sorry that's insane, the earth goes through these periods every now an then, warming followed by ice age followed by a nice middle ground, then warming again. We're simply in a new warming period and its not our fault at all. Nothing we can do could cause such an immense and fundamental change and such thought is egotistical.
Ok how about you both shut up. Both sides of this argument miss one single massive issue. If global warming is our fault or not, its still happening right? Even slowly? ok well I do not want my earth to flood. Am I the only one who sees it this way? Why argue about causes and reasons and the root problems? It does no good for anyone at all.
This is the issue I've been considering recently. I saw This fellow on a couple TV shows and he kinda sparked some thinking in my old noggin. I know he looks like a douche bag but he's actually kinda cool and has raised some points I'm going to steal for this article.
Ok first up, It does not matter who's fault it is. Global Warming is happening. If its our fault, well shit sorry guys our bad, if its earth's fault well fuck you earth I was planning on living near the coast (I suppose that'll be loads easier now anyway). The fact of the matter is that pretty soon some awful shit is gonna happen to this ball of rock we call our home and we need to do something about it REGARDLESS OF WHY ITS HAPPENING.
I can't imagine why anyone would disagree with me here (besides trying to make stupid point about how Global warming ain't no thang. tell that to our ancestors who lived through the last ice age. I imagine they probably didn't get much of a kick out of it. Its easy for us to go "welp let someone else deal with it" but if we keep saying that eventually we'll all fucking die.
Second, We can not solve global warming by driving hybrids and stopping our progress. No one on earth is going to voluntarily lower their standard of living for some vague unexplained problem that will not effect them and might not even effect their children. Why bother even trying? Instead lets maybe work out some ways to solve the problem using the thing we humans do best; Inventing some awesome shit.
The glorious fact of the matter is that humans could stop global warming, we could reverse it using shit like making more, whiter clouds and placing mirrors over deserts to reflect heat out, some of the stuff in this video would help too (some of it is terrible but the science is mostly good)
My point is we have the technology to solve this problem, so lets stop arguing who knocked over the vase and just fix the damn vase. We have the glue and the smarts and no one wants a smashed up vase just lying there, pick up all the little bits and lets deal with the problem rather than making it a massive political shit storm.
-Nems
Hahaha no sorry that's insane, the earth goes through these periods every now an then, warming followed by ice age followed by a nice middle ground, then warming again. We're simply in a new warming period and its not our fault at all. Nothing we can do could cause such an immense and fundamental change and such thought is egotistical.
Ok how about you both shut up. Both sides of this argument miss one single massive issue. If global warming is our fault or not, its still happening right? Even slowly? ok well I do not want my earth to flood. Am I the only one who sees it this way? Why argue about causes and reasons and the root problems? It does no good for anyone at all.
This is the issue I've been considering recently. I saw This fellow on a couple TV shows and he kinda sparked some thinking in my old noggin. I know he looks like a douche bag but he's actually kinda cool and has raised some points I'm going to steal for this article.
Ok first up, It does not matter who's fault it is. Global Warming is happening. If its our fault, well shit sorry guys our bad, if its earth's fault well fuck you earth I was planning on living near the coast (I suppose that'll be loads easier now anyway). The fact of the matter is that pretty soon some awful shit is gonna happen to this ball of rock we call our home and we need to do something about it REGARDLESS OF WHY ITS HAPPENING.
I can't imagine why anyone would disagree with me here (besides trying to make stupid point about how Global warming ain't no thang. tell that to our ancestors who lived through the last ice age. I imagine they probably didn't get much of a kick out of it. Its easy for us to go "welp let someone else deal with it" but if we keep saying that eventually we'll all fucking die.
Second, We can not solve global warming by driving hybrids and stopping our progress. No one on earth is going to voluntarily lower their standard of living for some vague unexplained problem that will not effect them and might not even effect their children. Why bother even trying? Instead lets maybe work out some ways to solve the problem using the thing we humans do best; Inventing some awesome shit.
The glorious fact of the matter is that humans could stop global warming, we could reverse it using shit like making more, whiter clouds and placing mirrors over deserts to reflect heat out, some of the stuff in this video would help too (some of it is terrible but the science is mostly good)
My point is we have the technology to solve this problem, so lets stop arguing who knocked over the vase and just fix the damn vase. We have the glue and the smarts and no one wants a smashed up vase just lying there, pick up all the little bits and lets deal with the problem rather than making it a massive political shit storm.
-Nems
Book 23 - Getting stoned with Savages by J. Maarten Troost
Sequel to Pacific Parasite-A-thon, our intrepid explorer now decided to check out Fiji and the surrounding islands
I actually finished this ages ago and just forgot to write my little bit. This book is really fun and entertaining. All my feelings about Troost hold over to this book and I just have to say its a delight to read about his adventures. I still don't want to go anywhere near the hellscapes he describes, but he seems to enjoy them enough. I absolutely love the fact that he spends a good long time talking about the histories and worlds within the islands he visits. It would be easy in his shoes to just write about silly things the islanders did but he takes it much further beyond that.
All I can really say is I enjoyed it cause its a lot like his last book and I suggest you check it out.
-Nems
I actually finished this ages ago and just forgot to write my little bit. This book is really fun and entertaining. All my feelings about Troost hold over to this book and I just have to say its a delight to read about his adventures. I still don't want to go anywhere near the hellscapes he describes, but he seems to enjoy them enough. I absolutely love the fact that he spends a good long time talking about the histories and worlds within the islands he visits. It would be easy in his shoes to just write about silly things the islanders did but he takes it much further beyond that.
All I can really say is I enjoyed it cause its a lot like his last book and I suggest you check it out.
-Nems
GM Rules, Organic Drools
Do you worry about GM foods? Do you ever sit around your grande latte and say stuff like "You know I just don't think we should mess with nature" or "Technology and Nature just shouldn't be mixed" or "We just don't know the long term effects, science doesn't know everything"?
Its you.
You are the dumbest person.
Genetically modified food is one of the greatest innovations mankind has ever made. It has saved literally billions of lives. Its guessed that Norman Borlaugh, one of the leading proponents of GM food, personally saved one billion lives. I know I'm constantly blowing figures out of proportion to make a point but I mean it. The man literally is responsible for 1/7th of the entire population having something to eat.
He did that with some incredible science and a will to save people. For those keeping score by the way, that's 1Billion to Scientists, 0 to stinking hippies and Greenpeace.
In today's world, its cool to reject science, because we're all backwards ass idiots with weird guilt problems about the earth, as though it belongs to anyone but us. But the fact is science is why you have enough food to be able to choose between your Organic yoghurt and the GM food, science is why you are able to live long enough to bother wondering about what we're doing to the planet, if you wanted us to stop fucking around with nature you should go back 1000 years and kill off anyone who comes up with the idea of crop rotation or irrigation or genetic modification.
Genetic modification? I'm just saying that to be funny right? No you moron. Breeding plants together to create stronger strains has been around since forever, and that's all GM is. No squid genes, no fluffy corn, just more corn per acre, more disease resistance and better tasting food. Its fucking awesome.
Honestly though this is a bit of an old topic, I don't think many people seriously believe that GM foods are bad, especially no one who is likely to read this blog. But just in case, here. There's been an actual lowering in stomach cancers in the past 10 years. There's been a lowering of colon and rectum cancer. In fact to cut this short, there's been a lowering of every cancer since 2000. GM foods are not causing cancer in any way shape or form. Considering ever bit of food you eat is GM in some way shape or form, even if you grow it yourself in your own stupid hippy garden, its not surprising that the issue is still seen as "inconclusive" to some. If GM food killed people, we'd have a lot more dead people frankly, and the opposite is happening.
Never mind the fact that every single food agency and peer-reviewed science journal has declared GM food safe and the only people who disagree are "The Organic Farmers Association" and Greenpeace. In the interests of fairness, some reports have also been published by heavily pro GM lobbyist groups stating the safety of GM food. Let it be known that I think dishonesty is horrible no matter which side is being dishonest.
Anyway, there's your rant and your evidence to back my shit up. Stop bitching about something that has genuinely saved the world. A lot of you guys don't realise this but 30 years ago people were very very worried about where we'd get food from, people were terrified that we'd not be able to grow enough shit to feed everyone on the earth. Well we solved that problem with GM foods and its benefits. GM foods literally saved the human race and all we can do is pretend we're too good for it.
To say nothing of all the brown people who would die if you shitty organic cunts got your way
-Nems
Genetically modified food is one of the greatest innovations mankind has ever made. It has saved literally billions of lives. Its guessed that Norman Borlaugh, one of the leading proponents of GM food, personally saved one billion lives. I know I'm constantly blowing figures out of proportion to make a point but I mean it. The man literally is responsible for 1/7th of the entire population having something to eat.
He did that with some incredible science and a will to save people. For those keeping score by the way, that's 1Billion to Scientists, 0 to stinking hippies and Greenpeace.
In today's world, its cool to reject science, because we're all backwards ass idiots with weird guilt problems about the earth, as though it belongs to anyone but us. But the fact is science is why you have enough food to be able to choose between your Organic yoghurt and the GM food, science is why you are able to live long enough to bother wondering about what we're doing to the planet, if you wanted us to stop fucking around with nature you should go back 1000 years and kill off anyone who comes up with the idea of crop rotation or irrigation or genetic modification.
Genetic modification? I'm just saying that to be funny right? No you moron. Breeding plants together to create stronger strains has been around since forever, and that's all GM is. No squid genes, no fluffy corn, just more corn per acre, more disease resistance and better tasting food. Its fucking awesome.
Honestly though this is a bit of an old topic, I don't think many people seriously believe that GM foods are bad, especially no one who is likely to read this blog. But just in case, here. There's been an actual lowering in stomach cancers in the past 10 years. There's been a lowering of colon and rectum cancer. In fact to cut this short, there's been a lowering of every cancer since 2000. GM foods are not causing cancer in any way shape or form. Considering ever bit of food you eat is GM in some way shape or form, even if you grow it yourself in your own stupid hippy garden, its not surprising that the issue is still seen as "inconclusive" to some. If GM food killed people, we'd have a lot more dead people frankly, and the opposite is happening.
Never mind the fact that every single food agency and peer-reviewed science journal has declared GM food safe and the only people who disagree are "The Organic Farmers Association" and Greenpeace. In the interests of fairness, some reports have also been published by heavily pro GM lobbyist groups stating the safety of GM food. Let it be known that I think dishonesty is horrible no matter which side is being dishonest.
Anyway, there's your rant and your evidence to back my shit up. Stop bitching about something that has genuinely saved the world. A lot of you guys don't realise this but 30 years ago people were very very worried about where we'd get food from, people were terrified that we'd not be able to grow enough shit to feed everyone on the earth. Well we solved that problem with GM foods and its benefits. GM foods literally saved the human race and all we can do is pretend we're too good for it.
To say nothing of all the brown people who would die if you shitty organic cunts got your way
-Nems
Book 22 - Blindsight by Peter Watts
65,000 alien probes appear in a flash above earth, a forgotten deep space probe picks up signals from the very edge of known space and a crew composed of broken zombies and a monster are sent to have first contact with an alien intelligence.
That is the biggest undersell I've ever done. Peter watts manages to scare the shit out of you while making you think your little brains out. I spent the book equal parts in fear and in awe at the ideas, speculative philosophical debates and all round future-y stuff. The book starts off slow and a little confusing but it quickly changes and becomes an amazing journey with discussions and uncomfortable arguments about the state of being, of consiousness, of our place in our own world as we rapidly invent things better than we could ever hope to be. Each character is broken in some fundemental way and uses technology to make up for that problem. I won't spoil it by analyising everything because I'd rather you did it for yourself, its damned fun and rewarding too.
I havn't even spoken about the plot yet, the plot is deceptively simple on the outside, while seemingly just another First Contact story, it is so much more. It has a concept of aliens that has never been done before (As far as I know), First contact ends just about as you'd expect but the journey to that ending is way different than you could imagine.
My only real complient is that half way through it feels like our perspective shifts and we're following another character for a little bit, but thats probably my fault. It gets hard to keep up when one of the characters is split into 4 different personalities and one lives through machines and sensors.
Really really read this. The genius has even left it up for free on his site. Right within these bloody words
Maybe I might ended up overselling it a bit but only because it was such a bloody good book. read it nowww.
That is the biggest undersell I've ever done. Peter watts manages to scare the shit out of you while making you think your little brains out. I spent the book equal parts in fear and in awe at the ideas, speculative philosophical debates and all round future-y stuff. The book starts off slow and a little confusing but it quickly changes and becomes an amazing journey with discussions and uncomfortable arguments about the state of being, of consiousness, of our place in our own world as we rapidly invent things better than we could ever hope to be. Each character is broken in some fundemental way and uses technology to make up for that problem. I won't spoil it by analyising everything because I'd rather you did it for yourself, its damned fun and rewarding too.
I havn't even spoken about the plot yet, the plot is deceptively simple on the outside, while seemingly just another First Contact story, it is so much more. It has a concept of aliens that has never been done before (As far as I know), First contact ends just about as you'd expect but the journey to that ending is way different than you could imagine.
My only real complient is that half way through it feels like our perspective shifts and we're following another character for a little bit, but thats probably my fault. It gets hard to keep up when one of the characters is split into 4 different personalities and one lives through machines and sensors.
Really really read this. The genius has even left it up for free on his site. Right within these bloody words
Maybe I might ended up overselling it a bit but only because it was such a bloody good book. read it nowww.
Book 21 - Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time. This is the story of a man who suffered through one of the worst bombings in history, and also happened to time travel to a different planet sometimes.
I didn't really intend for my last book of the year to be anything specific. In all honesty it would have ended up being either Dracula or Blindsight or Getting Stoned with Savages, had it not been for my plane getting delayed.
As it turns out, Slaughterhouse is a fantastic read. A great anti-war book with some fasinating passages and parts that will blow your mind (imagine an alien who can see in 4 dimensions. Now imagine what he'd think when he saw a dead body).
I really really enjoyed this book. It was very meaningful without being overly in your face about it, it had a nice tight storyline and it was very very well written. Sometimes the time traveling leaves you a bit disorientated, and the constant repetition of So it Goes gets comedical at some points, but overall, I highly recommend this book.
I didn't really intend for my last book of the year to be anything specific. In all honesty it would have ended up being either Dracula or Blindsight or Getting Stoned with Savages, had it not been for my plane getting delayed.
As it turns out, Slaughterhouse is a fantastic read. A great anti-war book with some fasinating passages and parts that will blow your mind (imagine an alien who can see in 4 dimensions. Now imagine what he'd think when he saw a dead body).
I really really enjoyed this book. It was very meaningful without being overly in your face about it, it had a nice tight storyline and it was very very well written. Sometimes the time traveling leaves you a bit disorientated, and the constant repetition of So it Goes gets comedical at some points, but overall, I highly recommend this book.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)