Into The West

I just read Fareed Zakaria's incredible piece, here, via The Drudge Report, on "The Rise of The Rest" or how America Exceptionalism is on its way out. A few points to make:

1. What makes America great is not its power. Nor its money. Nor it's sciences, engineers, companies, institutions, culture, or people. What makes America great is Freedom.

So despite the loss of our multiple "top" rankings in so many areas; what we must always consider is this: does globalization lead to increased Freedom or not? If yes, then we should embrace it - even as it means that we're not "Number 1."

2. The glory of our nation has not declined, but (has been/is being) outdone. It's an important distinction; because adults, emotional/spiritual adults, of whom there are too few, do not worry about the Jones. Adults look to their own house, compare themselves with themselves; the increase of other stars does not mean we shine any less. And if we are serious about caring for the world, and by the world I mean the people in it, then that greater light of all these stars is a blessing and not a curse.

3. "I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel." In Tolkien's Fellowship of the Ring, Galadriel passed her test to choose between supreme power and maintaining herself.

We face a similar choice: are we to remain the global supreme power, holding on, clutching, shrieking, biting and gnawing at our top spot, bitter and xenophobic, looking over our shoulders, attacking what we do not understand, always afraid, psychotically competitive, shrinking into ourselves, giving nothing and taking nothing?

Or shall we pursue the cause of Freedom, not just in ourselves but for all, each and every, across the wide wide world?

"But all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well." - Lewis

"And news will come to you of wars and talk of wars: do not be troubled, for these things have to be; but it is still not the end." - Matthew 24:6

It is not the end.

A Better Place

I found this site, Project Better Place, which details an effort to free automobiles from the need for oil.

The first project is to help the State of Israel convert to electric cars. The goal is for Israel to free itself from Middle Eastern oil - that is, the oil produced by its neighbors, many of whom are an anathema to it.

One interesting challenge on the site is how much money is spent on gas versus the cost of the car. So I pulled up my handy Windows calculator and ran my own numbers.

1995 Honda Del Sol 1.5L SOHC, manual transmission - $3200
Average repairs each year - $500-600
Average miles driven each year: 16000
Average MPG: 28 (32+ HW, 25 City)

Based on this, I have to buy 571 gallons of gasoline per year. If we assume that the average of last year and the next few years to be $3.5 per gallon, after three years I will have spent around $5k on the car itself (purchase price plus repairs and maintenance), and nearly $6k in gas.

Even with a high MPG rating, electric starts to make sense after a few years.

Run your numbers. See how long it will be (or was) before you spend (or spent) more on the fuel then on the vehicle.

Obama VS. NASA

Everyone interested in both presidential politics and our government's space program, specifically the manned portion, I would like to refer them to this article. It details Democratic candidate Obama's plan to defund, for five years, NASA's next generation of manned space exploration vehicles: the Constellation Launch System, which is designed to take us back to the moon and eventually to Mars. The savings will provide a portion of the cost of his proposed Zero to Five pre-kindergarten education program, designed to begin educating children as soon as they burst the womb. I'll leave what I think of government run education for another topic.

I consider myself a boomer for space exploration. So I disagree with the Senator on this. Canceling Constellation will not just set back our ability to explore the Universe outside our atmosphere, it will also cost thousands of high-tech jobs - many of which will leave the country to work for China's, India's, and Pakistan's growing space industry. I, therefore, firmly reject his stance and hope that our federal legislature, in the next decade, continues to insist, in strong terms, that NASA is fully funded for all current projects.

But does it really matter? If Humankind is truly destined to be a multi-planet species, then it won't be governments that make that happen. The loss of Constellation would be a blow and setback, but the private space industry is brinked on coming into it's own. Here's some companies to watch: Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, Armadillo Space, XCOR, and RocketPlane.

Already, five people have entered space as "tourists" - that is, private citizens paying for a ticket. Within the next ten years, that number will at least triple; and far more if we count the suborbital thrill rides that Virgin Galactic and RocketPlane are nearly ready to offer.

For fiction involving humans in space, I suggest Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Ben Bova, and the lately departed Arthur C. Clarke.

The Steady Pace

For me, the best future I can imagine for myself is a Heinleinesque take on what Jefferson always wanted: yeoman farmers. Independent freeholders whose government consisted of mutual defense, perhaps some roads or schools (administered at the local level) and little interference. The sad fact is that most of us are not independent. We currently need big, "evil" organizations, like Exxon-Mobil, Public Utilities, the Federal Government, AT&T and the Pharmaceuticals. We really do. I can't defend myself against an army, or drill for oil, or build giant communication networks, or make drugs to fight disease. I need those companies. For now.

I used to need big, old media - or I would have, had I not been born into the information age. I don't know anyone in Iraq, I don't know any of the presidential candidates, I don't know anyone at the UN. Thirty years ago the only way to get information was to drink from the big well: 3 major networks, 2 local papers (Dallas Morning News and the now defunct Dallas Times Herald), and perhaps a few nationals like the NYT. These "dinosaurs" still have a place, but the monopoly is over. And rightly so.

Anyone can find tremendously more information than they can possibly digest - and I couldn't be happier. The proliferation of online databases and sites like Google Scholar have made my life as a language scientist tremendously more productive.

I mentioned a moment ago that there was, essentially, too much information. It's certainly worth considering whether all this data has a downside. My answer? Yes, it does. Put thine lips to the firehose and try to slurp what you can.

But my point is this: it is now the individual's responsibility to decide what to believe, what to learn, what to watch, ect. We can be intellectual freeholders, if we choose so.

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So big media is now not so big. What about the other mega-corps that we currently depend on? Here's a few suggestions how technology could reduce them to the status of mere "option".


1. Oil. See my post here and a cool video from switched.com about electric and high MPG cars. One point, I think from Elon Musk of Tesla Motors, about hybrids that I consider very important is that a gasoline/electric car, like the Toyota Prius or Honda Insight, is still 100% addicted to oil.
Again, I'm not against oil. I'm against the addiction to it - which, like many addictions, keeps us impoverished and under control. I like gasoline. It's smelly and dirty and combustion engines are a pain in the ass to work on - nothing better for men who enjoy ripping things apart and putting them back together again.

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2. Energy. So what if the electric car makes it this time (as opposed to the myriad of other attempts to go electric)? We still need a source of reliable, cheap energy to plug into. Well, nuclear fusion is one option. The start-up costs just to prove it works, however, means an international approach is needed to finance and test it - and that means international politics. Might be a while.

Nuclear fission is another possibility, but the clean-up and long term storage of radioactive materials raises some significant problems.

The above, along with coal and natural gas (for most people), all require a large, organization - either corporate or government - to operate: which destroys the whole possibility of independent freeholders.

Wind and water power might work for some, since a relatively small company can install the powermill and transmission system into your home - but unless you're in West Texas or own a river you can dam, neither would provide enough to live off.

Which leaves us with solar. Right now, my suburban 1000 sqft house (with corresponding roof size) could get me about 50-60% of the electric power I need if I installed solar panels, like those from Solar City. We barely use 600KWH (kilowatt hours) a month during the winter and just about 1100KWH during the summer. We do use natural gas for heating (and water heating), so if we wanted to be energy independent we've have to covert to all electric and be able to produce 900-1500 KWH, per month from solar panels.

We'd also have to invest in some sort of massive battery system to store energy for night use.

Right now, along with the $10-15K price tag( just for the solar panels and installation, never mind the batteries), these problems mean that being an EI freeholder is outside the scope of reality for most people. I would need a tremendous amount of extra money and most of my back yard to make it work. People that live in smaller houses don't stand a chance.

But here are a few reasons I might in another decade.

a. See MIT's work on batteries and energy storage here. The clever engineers are also working on retrieving electricity from thermal loss, as seen here. The former means that we are going to see energy storage increase dramatically. The latter suggests that appliances and devices will use less and less power. We've already seen this happen over the last few decades (look for the energy star label on home appliances).

b. Solar panel costs are going to be coming down because of advances in the, as this article suggests, and because of increases in production as demand for them climbs.

c. The numbers above about how much electricity I could get for my home were based on solar cells that operated around 10% efficiency. New cells have climbed to 20%, and it's been shown, as prototypes, that cells can convert 40% of the sun's energy to electricity.

I fully expect that the next decade will provide relatively cheap, high efficiency solar cells, along with incredible battery technology - perhaps enough for individuals, with a enough investment, to become their own energy providers.

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3. Water. Even when you can supply you're own energy, recharge your own car, you still need water. Water, however, is the world's most abundant resource - if you can drink it. Which brings us to some exciting news, as seen here. Essentially, the man who invented the Segway, Dean Kamen, has developed a device that produces clean water from mud. From saltwater. From urine. All you need is a plug. He's currently trying to distribute them to Africa and, as he says, save 50 million lives who would otherwise face death from drought or diseased drinking water.

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4. Communication. The internet started with a basic premise: surfers and servers and ISPs. Servers serve information, surfers enjoy it, and the ISPs (Internet Service Providers) paid for and ran the wires and switches to connect everyone together. While the backbone of the internet is likely to remain the massive fiber network stretched across America, wireless technology is increasing in speed and range so quickly, I'm not entirely sure that we'll need the wires forever. I can envision a P2P (peer to peer) wi-fi cloud that does away with the need for ISPs. I pay for a cable internet connection now, but free wireless is so prevalent now that I could certainly remain quite connected without Time-Warner Cable, Comcast, AT&T, or any of the others. Throw in a VOIP, wi-fi phone, and the wires creep back a little further.

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I don't want to suggest that we all need to hop off the grid. I'm not calling for revolution - just the recognition that the future before us need not be a mere continuation of the now: a faster, sharper, higher rez version of the present.

The industrial revolution lashed us together economically.

But for all the great accomplishments of the last two centuries, we've lost a great deal of self-reliance; and, as I see it, enslaved ourselves to increasingly large, increasingly impersonal, and increasingly inefficient corporations and government.

Conservatives have been traditionally wary of big government - progressives have long feared and fought against fascism. What progressives need to remember is that it is far better for people to take care of themselves than it is for government to - and conservatives need to remember that big corporations can be as bad as a giant, leering federal bureaucracy.

Let's let individual liberty, empowered by technology, be the defining characteristic of the next age.

The Star Child Goes Nova: Arthur C. Clarke going up at 90

Another passing, shooting, flaming soul goes rocketing (into the heavens/to Heaven). Interesting set of phrases there. Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001, A Space Odyssey; and the subsequent 2010, 2061, 3001. My favorite, I think, was 2010 - it seemed the most mythic.

Clarke's work was always hopeful: for the wonders that technology could unfold to us, for the exploration of space, and most of all for the future of the human spirit, no matter the form.


For more, see his foundation's website here and a news story about his going up here.

Here is a subversive website that illegally hosts some of his works. Don't go to it and read his novels and stories for free.

UPDATE: Here is a farewall video from Clarke on the occasion of his 90th birthday.

Going Electric

First off, let me say that I like gasoline. I'm addicted, like everyone else; but I genuinely like it. Even if the best of all I hope for comes to bear and the world begins to shelve the combustion engine, I'll be that dude in 50 years paying ten dollars a gallon for it, for my "classic" 1990's tuned Honda that I'll tinker with and jet around through my retirement. I see these old-timers in Model A Ford customized roadsters and I know that is one of my possible futures: a relic of an unsustainable past - a crazy old-timer. Gasoline as a hobby, a weekend sport.

But before we bankrupt ourselves, financially and perhaps morally, on a gas addiction, I hope the commuters and families and daily drivers will go electric sooner rather than later.

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To that end, congratulations to Elon Musk and the team at Tesla Motors, who yesterday started line production of the Tesla Electric Roadster. See more here.

A quick overview:
Tesla Roadster
$100,000
0-60mph in 3.9 seconds - and no torque curve: acceleration remains constant.
4+ hours to fully charge
200+ miles per charge
$.02 - $.05 per mile (depending on how much you pay for electricity)
Motor and batteries are designed to go to 100,000 miles.
TARGA (removable) top, looks like a Lotus because Lotus engineers helped design it.

The company has already stated that this high end sports car is an entry into the market: profit from selling these will fund R&D for a $50K sport sedan model, and then a $30K commuter.

Also, the batteries are non-toxic and can be safely thrown away - or recycled for cash to help offset the price of new batteries.

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This car will not save the world. Electric cars will not save the world. But its the damn fastest and damn sexiest methadone for oil addiction that I've seen. Send in the electrics!