Webs’ Random Ideas

Cool Pics From the 2006 Eco-Transportation Show in Chicago! I wish I could have attended this, but it would have interfered with my schedule. I would imagine this will become an annual event due to the success they had.

I lucked out! I am only 12% girly. And apparntly I equate to a skater-chic…

You Are 12% Girly

Um… you’re a guy, right? If not, you’re the most boyish girl in the world. And for you, that’s probably the ultimate compliment.

I must say I am a little surprised with the results. I didn’t think I would score what I got, but I might take it again to seed what happens the second time.

Well at least that is what Colbert says. If the Colbert Report doesn’t have the best writers in all of TV working for him, please tell me who does. I have yet to watch a clip from his show that didn’t make me laugh my ass off.

Well blogging is slowing down because I am working on getting my MS 70-291 certification which will part of the MCSA certification. So if you don’t see much that is why. Then after that I got to prepare for school and work on my Dad’s website. But maybe I can get a few things in once in a while ;).

My girlfriend bugs me about my nerdiness. I have always contested that I am not a nerd but a geek, and that there is a difference. To me a geek is someone that strives to become an expert at something. In my mind there is no such thing as a computer nerd. Most of these people strive to become knowledgable at computers and work to understand them at great levels. This is a sign of a geek. I am still working on my definition of a nerd, but I think social skills play a part. For instance I would say I have pretty good social skills, so there again it would be difficult to classify me as a nerd. But anyways here are the results from my nerd test.

I am a huge fan of liberal arts. I think the arts are one of the most important things our society has. Not only in terms of self expressions and a means for an outlet, but in terms of creating a community and a language and cultural barrier. An artist of any kind, whether it be in music, games, drawings, pictures, movies, writing, etc can take a message, and make it so clear that anyone can understand. That to me is power. How many times have you ever said something in your life that never needed to be repeated to someone that had already heard it, and that was so powerful that everyone stopped what they were doing and paid attention? How many times have you had your message repeated to others in an attempt to share your communication with the world? Well as far as I know I have never had that profound of an impact on anything, but then again my mission in life isn’t to be immortal.

What I like to do though is write about issues that I feel are important to me, but more importantly, should matter to the rest of the world. My friend DOF is also writing about this issue, but in terms of education as a whole. I think his ideas for lower education are wonderful and are fantastic ideas, and I like his idea on drawing as a communication skill:

(Trust me, you will not need to “encourage creativity” if you equip children with with an ability like that. If kids are not creative it is because we have deprived them of the tools to be creative with. How creative can you be if your reading comprehension is poor, you can’t write a clear sentence, you don’t know anything, and you can’t draw?)

I will tend to agree with this but take it one step further. I think art classes should be mandatory at most levels of schooling (Maybe on in primary and elementary school, and then one for each year of junior high, and then another for high school). And we should make sure that more than just drawing get touched on. Children of all ages need to learn the importance of all forms of art at all levels within a functional society, and I think DOF’s idea is a step in the right direction.

The thing that inspired me to write about this was the documentary Street Prophetz. What a wonderful film this was, and right now it can be seen for free at Google Videos. The film follows underground artists in Hip-Hop, Skateboarding, MC, freestyle danncing, and Graffiti. I had no idea how beautiful graffiti art could be till I saw this film. But I really like how the artist said that graffiti art also creates a community where artists can come together and collaborate. And I think this was an underlying message in the movie, that all of these forms of art lead to a community where people work together to come up with some amazing results. Take skateboarding for instance. Many skateboarders on the streets work together and skate together, and this creates a project of collaboration, and the results are stunning. Just watch the street competition of a skateboarding event sometime.

The film also follows a couple hip-hop artists and really dives into their history and how they got started. I am a fan of hip-hop, not rap, but hip-hop. For those of you wondering, there is a difference. Hip-hop to me is more natural, because it doesn’t have to be mass-produced. It’s not about telling people what your going to do with your bitches, and coming out with the same shit year after year. Rap is overplayed, washed out beats, and lyrics an 8 year old could write (which I guess is why there used to be a couple of 8 or 10 year old rappers). Now there are a couple of main-stream rappers I have respect for, such as Common, Mos Def, Kanye West, and probably someone else I am forgetting, but for the most part, I try not to waste time listening to it. Hip-hop started as an underground movement, and it is still strong and thriving today. A good way to hear underground music of any form is to listen to the local college station, or hop on the web and do a simple Google search. Also try going to bars when a local band or a small band is going to play. The money spent on the cover charge for hearing a local or small time band is better spent, versus buying a CD from Best Buy.

I really like the way the film shows you how a lot of these underground arts got started, and how they function. Most people put graffiti in the same category as littering, but I think if they see another side to it, their perception will change.

Keep trying dumb asses, because the fact that your first 20 attempts didn’t work is certainly no indication that the next 20 won’t right… Even though I have banned your websites and IP’s, and even though my spam filter has caught every single message you have attempted to send.

Big thanks to: Scientist, Interrupted. This is just too damn funny to pass up:

Here’s a really interesting article on ethanol and what future it holds as a fuel source. Jason Hill, a biologist with the University of Minnesota in St. Paul, recently published an article on how corn-grain ethanol is not environmentally friendly. From the article linked above:

According to the analysis, significantly less fertilizer and pesticide are required to grow soybeans than corn. In addition, soybean biodiesel produces 93 percent more energy than is expended in its creation. Corn-grain ethanol produces only 25 percent more. And when compared with fossil fuels, biodiesel produces 41 percent less greenhouse gas emissions, while ethanol produces 12 percent fewer.

What’s really interesting about the above numbers is that for a while everyone believed that ethanol had a negative energy gain, and was heavily subsidized by the government, which made it so cheap. Well yes it is heavily subsidized, but recent studies actually contradict David Pimentel’s study which found that corn ethanol requires 29 percent more energy to produce than the fuel generates. But Hill still argues that using ethanol as E85 is incredibly irresponsible. But I tend to disagree with him.

Now if ethanol came only from corn, than Hill has a point. But he needs to focus his statements. “Corn-grain ethanol” is environmentally irresponsible, but ethanol can come from a plethora of sources, there are soybeans, corn, and cellulosic sources such as grasses, woodchips, fats, and, animal feces. And corn doesn’t have to be used to actually create the ethanol. In other words, it would be really simple to design a closed-loop system where you grow corn and other plants for cows to feed on. Through a troth system, you collect the feces of the cow. The cow feces get sent to a refinery where the majority of it gets refined into methane which is used to power the plant that refines ethanol, and the leftover gets used as fertilizer for the crops that are fed to the cattle. This would solve Hill’s problem, and these little stations could be set up in many places throughout the country, not just the midwest. A similar system to the one I described is currently being run in New York state.

I do like how the article ends, on the notion that there is not one fuel type that will solve our problems. I couldn’t agree more. There needs to be multiple choices for consumers. It’s ridiculous that when we go to fill up our cars we only have one choice, gas. Why? This is what drives our addiction. You want to help solve the addiction, global warming, and the crisis in the middle east? Start making 5 fuel system cars like Volvo is currently doing, and put 5 fuel sources at each pumping station.