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Another Breakthrough on the Alternative Energy Front

489 days ago

I've read lots about hydrogen fuel cells and cars powered by them. Although hydrogen fuel cell technology represents a change in the degree of our dependence on fossil fuels, I'm pretty disgusted by a few of that technology's attributes: 1) Most hydrogen fuel cells use fossil fuels to operate. Natural gas is the most commonly used fuel for hydrogen fuel cells, although methane is also used in some models. I suppose it is outlandish to hope for a complete break from our dependence on fossil fuels, but I believe that the major energy companies have an important stake in seeing that this technology doesn't cut them out entirely. For some odd reason, natural gas, and sometimes gasoline is used for the production of hydrogen. The hydrogen fuel cell itself only exhausts water vapor or liquid, but the extraction/production of hydrogen from water for most fuel cells requires a fossil fuel. 2) Present hydrogen fuel cell technology would require fueling stations for fuel distribution. ...

Green Cars, Media Hype, a promising answer to high fuel prices, and more!

527 days ago

Yesterday I read with some excitement about Honda's new hydrogen fuel cell car, the FCX Clarity. This is of course one of those wonderful no-emissions vehicles that the press and automotive makers have been speculating would be the next step for American motorists, and the liberation from our addiction to foreign oil. At first blush, I was pretty excited in reading about this car. One of the things that has bothered me about hydrogen fuel cell technology was the fact that we would still be chained to buying fuel from "gas" stations. I don't entertain any hatred for the big oil companies (although low cost to consumers has never been part of their mission statements, and that is annoying). The Honda FCX counters that inefficient addiction to fuel stations by pioneering the "Home Energy Station IV". This is a natural gas powered unit which sits outside one's house and produces enough Hydrogen to power both the car and the home’s energy needs at around 50% of the ...

Meditations on the Porch

528 days ago

Alright, I wasn't meditating on the cosmic mysteries of my, or any other porch. Tonight I was sitting on my porch, unwinding from a brisk day at the headstone shop by playing my Banjo. I've learned from playing musical instruments that a body can actually enter a meditative state by playing an instrument -you just sit there, fingerpick an open chord, and let your fingers do the wandering instead of your mind. If you just sit there, and play with the instrument a while, with no song in mind, no musical destination, just pretty notes, soon you feel your body loosening up, and if you're lucky, you'll actually get an endorphin rush as you play, and listen to the music. Tonight was more special than other nights. I played an open G chord, and moved my finger up and down the D string striking harmonious notes. I was playing a syncopated roll, and really started to feel good when I noticed a squirrel 12 feet away from me, eating rose hips from my garden, and watching me. Ordinarily when ...

Bo Diddley dies at 79

545 days ago

Bo Diddley was an early Rock m' Roll Musician. He was in his 30s at the time of his "discovery" by Chess records. The Chess brothers saw that Rock 'n Roll was selling lots of records, and put blues veteran Willie Dixon to work finding a place for him in the Chess stable of artists. Bo Diddley was an average guitar player, although he did have a great voice. What really set him apart from other Rock 'n Roll artists of the time was his rhythmic hook, that is known as the Bo Diddley sound. This hypnotic rhythm and his songs that spoke to the youth of the day influenced countless artists to come, including The Yardbirds, John Cippolina of the Quick Silver Messenger Service, and especially George Thoroughgood whose band the Delaware Destroyers' covers of seminal Bo Diddley songs such as "Who Do You Love" introduced a new generation to the Bo Diddley sound. Bo Diddley expressed bitterness in his later years at not being properly compensated for his artistic work. It ...

Making Blogs that stick -Windows Live Writer

547 days ago

I've been blogging to some degree on Windows Live Spaces since December of 2004. One of the biggest frustrations in my blogging has been the evil tendency of Windows Live Spaces to swallow whole blogs that I have painstakingly written. On average, I spend about 40 minutes writing and tweaking each blog post that I make. Several times I have been frustrated when a blog is lost to the ether- whether by me accidentally navigating away from the page before a blog is posted, by Internet Explorer locking up, or maybe it was gremlins that killed my post. I would usually throw my hands up in despair when a blog got swallowed, and wouldn't bother trying to rewrite and repost it. Another frustration in blogging on Windows live spaces has been placing and tweaking photographs that I embed in my blogs. All of these problems have been answered for by Microsoft, by the release of the new (to me) Windows Live Writer. This gorgeous tool enables a blogger to compose blogs on their local machine, ...