Interesting links and notes on updates to my main website.



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Our National Energy Policy: Consumption

before you cheer for Canada, consider the glaring hole: There is no energy policy to speak of, other than to pump the oil and gas out of the ground as fast as the technology allows, and export them. What happens when the cheap stuff runs out? If it weren't running out, oil companies wouldn't be sinking tens of billions of dollars into the Alberta oil sands.

While it's easy to decry Europe for nationalistic energy frenzy, at least some European countries are thinking beyond the next quarter. The Swedish government just announced its intention to be free of fossil fuels by 2020. It's probably an impossible goal, but at least it's a goal and even a marginal reduction in oil consumption would be an accomplishment.

Japan imports no more oil today than it did in the 1970s. Britain's oil consumption is no higher today than it was in 1973, when the Arab oil embargo sent prices soaring. Its goal is to keep it that way. A congestion charge in central London, introduced in 2003 and raised last year to £8 ($16) for private vehicles, has substantially reduced traffic and raised air quality without killing the convenience factor. Most of the collected fees are put into public transportation.

In Japan, Britain and in other parts of Europe, the policy of high energy taxes has crimped demand, encouraged the development of alternative energy and created cars whose fuel consumption is a marvel by North American standards. If oil prices keep rising, the effect on the European economies will be easier to bear, relatively speaking.

In Canada, as in the United States, energy policy is focused on the supply side -- the more the better, end of argument -- and is almost purely reactive. The oil sands need to burn natural gas to create the steam to heat the tarry oil so it can be pumped to the surface. So without thinking about the consequences of burning clean fuel to make a dirty fuel, plans are made to build the 1,200-kilometre Mackenzie pipeline.

If Toronto or Calgary or Vancouver introduced a London-style congestion charge, drivers would ram their SUVs into the mayor's office. No politician would dare suggest such an idea. The supply policy works beautifully; the conservation policy doesn't work because it doesn't exist. Canada, as a result, will not be a leader in the development of energy-efficient and renewable-energy technologies -- probably the fastest-growing industry in the world.

from the Globe and Mail - What Europe can learn from Canada - Eric Reguly

The oil sands make no sense.
Let me see, we take giant oil-powered machines and use them to scoop up and grind up slightly oily dirt.
Then we lovingly steam-clean the dirt using fossil natural gas and clean water, in order to produce: some fairly crummy oil.

If this doesn't tell you that economics and politics don't work, I don't know what will. posted by Richard at 23:09 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

new health plan: chocolate

Ten grams of dark chocolate a day, or about one-third of a chocolate bar, may reduce the risk of dying from heart disease and stroke by half, new research suggests.

Dutch men who regularly consumed cocoa, from Mars and Milky Way bars to full-fat chocolate milk, had significantly lower blood pressure than those who did not.

And men with the highest cocoa consumption (4.2 grams per day, or equal to 10 grams of chocolate) were half as likely as the others to die from cardiovascular disease.

They were also less likely to die of any cause in the study.

National Post - Dark chocolate may reduce heart disease, stroke risk - February 28, 2006 posted by Richard at 17:29 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

feedburnerized

Ok, so the blog is all rss feedburnerized. So if you're reading in your feed aggregator thing, you, my vast audience of about 10 readers, will now need to subscribe to the new shiny

http://feeds.feedburner.com/ManifestoMultilinko

The old feed is dead and also gone. posted by Richard at 15:27 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

new Intel Mac minis

As widely predicted, Apple announced the new Intel Mac minis today.
Nothing I can see about Intel Viiv or movies-through-iTunes though.

mini cheapy

Can$699.00
Ships: 1-2 business days
Free Shipping
1.5GHz Intel Core Solo processor [single core]
2MB L2 Cache
667MHz Frontside Bus
512MB memory (667MHz DDR2 SDRAM) [yo Apple, 512MB is teh inadequate]
60GB Serial ATA hard drive
Combo drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW)
Built-in AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth 2.0
Apple Remote

mini twin

Can$949.00
Ships: 1-2 business days
Free Shipping
UPGRADES cheapy to
1.66GHz Intel Core Duo processor [dual core]
80GB Serial ATA hard drive [also this isn't enough HD space these days]
Double-layer SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)

"All Mac mini models also include an integrated Intel GMA950 graphics processor with 64MB of shared DDR2 SDRAM(1), 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet, four external USB 2.0 ports, FireWire 400 port, optical digital and analog audio in/out, and built-in mono speaker."

le full tech specs: http://www.apple.com/macmini/whatsinside.html

* DVI video output to support digital resolutions up to 1920 by 1200 pixels; supports 20-inch Apple Cinema Display and 23-inch Apple Cinema HD Display; supports coherent digital displays up to 154MHz; supports noncoherent digital displays up to 135MHz
[err coherent? noncoherent? what?]
* VGA video output (using included adapter) to support analog resolutions up to 1920 by 1080 pixels

So the actually sensible configuration would be:
Can$1219
mini twin UPGRADE to
* 1GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x512 [it's C$120 for the extra 512MB]
* 120GB Serial ATA drive

I guess this is more or less in line with the iMac pricing
Can$1619
17-inch widescreen LCD with 1440x900 resolution
keyboard and mouse
1.83GHz Intel Core Duo with 2MB shared L2 cache
1GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x512 [upgraded from base 512MB]
160GB Serial ATA hard drive
Slot-load 8x double-layer SuperDrive
ATI Radeon X1600 graphics with 128MB GDDR3 memory
Built-in AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth 2.0 posted by Richard at 14:09 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

under construction

remember the little digging man that used to show up on everyone's home pages?

err, anyway, some disruptions while I move the RSS feed to FeedBurner posted by Richard at 07:39 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

reading and watching

Just finishing Firefly (one more episode to go). Finished Voyage of the Beagle and Stolen Continents. Reading Devil's Game right now.

It appears they are gearing up an Iraq strategy as follows: post-war Iraq failed because the Iraqis are insane (and possible incompetent). Ah yes, blame the victim. Delightful. posted by Richard at 17:50 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

bg 2.18

Now that was a good episode.

Labels: battlestar galactica

posted by Richard at 04:20 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)