JamesSavik

It has come to my attention that some of you have never heard of the Bloodhound Gang. This is not acceptable. Prepare to laugh your ass completely off. You might want to turn it up. Check them out on YouTube. Other notable titles are: Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo and Kiss Me Where It Smells Funny

trust (me)

Of course it depends on exactly what you are trying to lubricate.

I really hate all three. Add the Andy Griffin Show to the list. When I was a kid, they played these brainless shows over and over on local TV. They could have done Trek re-runs but this is the South. They only played the syndicated programs they could get on the cheap. But seriously folks- there's about 3 TV series after ST/OS that I watch: ST/NG, Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica (2003). The rest of TV is dog vomit. There have been others worth watching but the networks canceled them all before they completed their story arcs.

The plot to every Star Trek episode ever (a writer's perspective) There is always an initial incident and some poor guy in a red-shirt is eaten by an alien. Then there is a commercial break... for 20 minutes. The doctor says he's dead Jim and I've never seen anything like it. Some random character has a flashback (or a bad burrito- that part is never clear) to set up the next scene. Captain Kirk says WHY... do they hate these shirts!? The Klingons show up in a super-sporty ship that is inexplicably full of smoke, say something fierce and threatening and then wander off to more random confrontations. The engineer must fix some random gizmo before the universe explodes. The science officer must discover a vaccine for a new plague that could wipe out all life in the galaxy. The helmsman simply has to look fabulous. The heroes are heroic, villains villainous and the day is saved. It is magically pulled together, and works in 50 minutes... unless it is a two part episode in which case, there is a horrific cliffhanger! The moral of my story is that... you can't possibly be more scripted or predictable than THAT. We don't have to write for the screen. Nor do we have to do commercial breaks. We aren't limited by a time slot.

Think about the way Star Trek starts. There is always an initial incident and some poor guy in a red-shirt is eaten by an alien. Then there is a commercial break... for 20 minutes. The doctor says he's dead Jim and I've never seen anything like it. Some random character has a flashback... or a bad burrito... to set up the next scene. Captain Kirk says WHY... do they hate red shirts!? The Klingons show up in a super-sporty ship that is inexplicably full of smoke, say something fierce and threatening and then wander off to more random confrontations. The engineer must fix some random gizmo before the universe explodes. The science officer must discover a vaccine for a new plague that could wipe out all life in the galaxy. The helmsman simply looks fabulous. The heros are heroic, villains villainous and the day is saved. It is magically pulled together, and works in 50 minutes... unless it is a two part episode in which case, there is a horrific cliffhanger! The moral of my story is that... you can't possibly be more scripted or predictable than THAT.

Sexual fluidity... you mean like KY-jelly?

been there, done that, threw away the t-shirt.

Gay marriage in the South is as useful as a bicycle would be to a fish. What good is it when you get fired from your job and your lease is terminated? Sure you are now married but, unemployed and homeless. That's so much better! With no anti-discrimination protection, you might as well wear a t-shirt that says f*ck me over.

It's 1984. Summer. Hot as hell. It's you, me and the Z-car. It's midnight. I am the one your mother warned you about.

Please keep in mind that the Wright brothers first flight was in 1903- a little more than 100 years ago. Computers appeared in numbers in the 1950s. The Internet ~ 1990. Never say never. We humans can be remarkably dumb in some ways but, we innovate like crazy. We don't know what we will come up with in the next six months, year, 10 years, 50 years, 100 years, and so on. What we can be sure of is that there will be innovation and we have no idea what shape or form that innovation will take.

*Purrs*

Thanks guys-

The problem with wind and solar power- and any credible engineer will back me on this- is that the power produced is inconsistent. It simply can't create a reliable base line of power that you need to build a power grid when it's dark and the wind isn't blowing. Geothermal power has that potential but Obama's backers didn't invest in it so it is being overlooked. That seems to be the acid test on which alternative energy methods is getting the federal billions.

Keep in mind when they say earth-like, they mean rocky and relatively the same size. Past that point, anything goes. It could be an iceberg, another Venus or have no atmosphere at all.

The entire history of nuclear technology can be summed up into leaping before we looked. As I am an engineer, I'm much less a candidate for getting my crank yanked. I've been following the Fukashima disaster since it's very first hours. What happened was basically very simple- the power that ran the cooling system failed. The consequences were anything but simple. A more precise and detailed account of what happened would take volumes and some of it would be pure conjecture because the events were so radioactive that not even drones or remote sensors would have survived to offer readings. We can't just turn them off. We can't even figure out how to clean them up. What we have to do is find a replacement that doesn't offer the same or even worse risks and environmental costs. What has to happen is to leave Uranium behind as nuclear fuel. The best candidate replace it is Thorium. If a different set of decisions had been made in the fifties, we wouldn't have this problem now.

These mutant daisies are appearing around the wreak of the Fukashima Daiichi power station. In March 2011 Japan was struck by a massive 9.0 quake. The Fukashina (BWR) boiling water reactors survived the earthquakes- one of the most massive in world history. The reactors scrammed and shut down- everything was working as it was supposed to until a massive tsunami struck the plant and wiped out the plants emergency power supply. Without power, the reactor cooling systems failed and the radiation and temperature in the reactor cores soared. Water got so hot that the oxygen and hydrogen separated and accumulated to dangerous levels and eventually exploded. One by one reactors 1 through 4 were destroyed by run-away nuclear reactions releasing massive amounts of radiation. It's been over four years and no one, NO ONE has a clue how to clean up the site. TEPCO's plan, the operating company, most optimistic plan takes forty years and requires that new technology be developed. The Fukashima disaster is not over. It won't be for a very long time. In fact, it is constantly leaking radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. Many people would point at Fukashima as a reason why nuclear power should go. I think this needs a qualifier: nuclear power in its current form should go. Today's nuclear plants are based on the Uranium fuel cycle. It messy, very radioactive and creates tons of highly radioactive waste that we have no idea what to do with. Why Uranium? In the 1950s when the USSR and the United States were designing the first commercial nuclear power plants there were two main directions that they could have turned: Uranium or Thorium. The reason that the decision was made to pursue Uranium based designs is that it supported the nuclear weapons arsenals that both sides in the Cold War were building. By having those reactors available, they could be modified to create the highly enriched Uranium that was required for nuclear weapons. Uranium based reactors were fairly easy to design and build. The fuel was easily refined but there were serious drawbacks. They create a lot of radioactive wastes. The early designs were dangerous. The biggest problem is that while there is a high level of safety and reliability, when things go wrong, they go wrong in a very big way. The Thorium Question? With our energy and environmental problems, nuclear power supplies 20% of the American power grid. We are not in a position where we can simply turn them off and call it a day. Nothing that we know of offers the bang for the buck and doesn't create massive amounts of CO2 emissions. We are between a rock and a hard place. We can NOT go forward with Uranium plants. They are just too dangerous. So.. we have to take a long look at Thorium based reactors. Everything about the Thorium fuel cycle is different. Thorium burns cleaner, doesn't create nearly as much waste and the reactor designs are much safer. Furthermore- Thorium can not be weaponized. Prototype Thorium reactors are operating in China, India and the United States and all signs are that over the next decade production reactors will be available to replace the aging Uranium based reactors that are being decommissioned. It won't happen overnight but expect to see our legacy of dangerous Cold War legacy reactors going the way of modems and floppy disks. We no longer need thousands of nuclear weapons, nor do we need the infrastructure to build more. It's time to put the evil genie of Uranium based nuclear power back in the bottle forever.

I flew from Portland, OR to Dallas, TX (4 1/2 hours), layover 4 hours in Texas heat, plane delayed 2 more hours, Dallas, TX to JAN 1 hour in the air. Yes. I am very funky!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfligs2SLBw