Daily Archives: November 14, 2007

Fueling the Future

Ronald Bailey has written an interesting article weighing our future fuel options. The problem – our green alternatives aren’t cheap enough and the cheap alternatives aren’t green. He’s not impressed by ethonol or hydrogen.

He is excited by next generation (nanotech engineered) lithium ion batteries. Also:

Biotechnology is another possible pathway to a post-petroleum future. For example, the privately-held biotech company, LS9, based in San Carlos, CA. aims to use synthetic biology to skip over ethanol to directly produce gasoline. LS9 co-founder and Harvard University geneticist George Church describes synthetic biology as “treating biology the way you would treat large-scale integrated circuits. We’ve been dealing with one part at a time or a small number of parts. Synthetic biology is engineering of new systems using parts that we trust.” Another way to think about it is that biologists want to do to biology what engineers have done to electronics and chemists have done with chemistry.

I had similar thoughts back in June.

No 24 or Trek Spoilers Here

I mean, everybody already knows that, in the new season, CTU has been shut down and that Tony Almeda is still alive and — apparently — evil. What? You didn’t know that? Well, those are still not spoilers, seeing as all those facts are revealed in the previews that Fox has been showing for weeks now. So get caught up already.

Actually, that may be easier said than done. I went to Fox.com looking for the previews so I could link them here and all I could find was a video of Keifer Sutherland lecturing me about global warming. Plus, it looks like the season premiere will be delayed due to the writer’s strike — confirming my long-held suspicion that there is no master plan for 24; they’re making it up as they go along.

Anyhow, one of my favorite things about 24 is these little moments when Chloe will say, “Here, Jack, I’ve accessed the full electrical schematic for LAX,” and Jack says “Upload that to my PDA,” and then it’s like — Zip! Jack has the schematic. Yeah. Right. If you get as big a kick out of that sort of thing as I do, then you are sure to enjoy the unaired 1994 pilot for 24.

Via GeekPress, who also provides the following spoiler-laden link with this warning:

If you don’t want to know the plot to the Star Trek 11 movie, then don’t click here.

I really don’t want to follow the link, but I’m concerned about what I’ve been hearing about this movie. Could somebody who isn’t all that into Star Trek please do me a favor and follow the link, then leave a comment letting me know that they aren’t really going to have Kirk, Spock, and McCoy (much less the other four) all attending Star Fleet Academy at the same time — which makes no sense, based on their various ages. That might be enough of a show-stopper to keep me from going to see it, J. J. Abrams notwithstanding.

spocky.jpg

Fascinating. It seems that they can actually change our past, Captain. But to meddle in established history in this manner would be most illogical.

If you do follow the link and want to send me a message of reassurance — or warning — please put an appropriate spoiler warning on your comment.