I am such a sucker for both slow motion and time lapse photography.
We have a perception of the world that is determined largely by our perception of time. To slide either forward or backward along the scale between short-lived beings such as insects or long-existing objects such as stars can dramatically alter your appreciation of reality.
The universe is a dynamic and ever changing place. If you think anything stays the same for more than an instant, think again.
An interview between James Randi and Richard Dawkins.
I always find both of these gentlemen riveting to listen to. If we could have such skeptical, clear thinking in our media and our politics, this country would be in a much better state.
My friend King sent this and I thought it was pretty interesting.
— From King —
If you don’t like the first link, give-up on the rest because they are all
on the same topic.http://www.econvergence.net
/electro.htm http://www.windstreampower.com
/humanpower/ppg.html http://www.voanews.com/english
/2007-03-11-voa14.cfm http://www.gulland.ca/homenerg
y/lindabike.htm http://users.erols.com/mshaver
/bikegen.htm http://www.otherpower.com
/otherpower_experiments _bicycle.html
— End From King —
I was biting my tongue when I saw the “average person can generate 150 to 200 watts of power” in that first article. Maybe if you set them on fire…
One of the later articles was talking about 50 watts which made MUCH more sense. My exercycle has a “watts” reading and, if it’s at all accurate, 200 watts is a LOT of exertion.
I recall at the Science center that you could watch yourself on that TV, I was never 100% sure how much you were powering, was it just the TV or was it the TV camera as well? With modern LCD panels and cool new CCD technology I imagine it would take a lot less effort now, but even the most stalwart pedaler would only last in the 10’s of seconds.
It’s a neat idea, I don’t think many of those “green” suggestions (the cool bikes in the later articles) are ever going to be to practical in our weather region. We’ve mentally (socially) evolved beyond the desire to get soaked or frozen trying to get to work.
Heck, even car pools seem to be an impossibility nowadays, especially with flex hours and whatnot.
If we could reinstate a body to advise congress on matters scientific, so that our lawmakers could have some other point of view besides those provided by pollsters and special interest lobbyists, I believe we would have far fewer of this kind of ill-conceived bill winding its way through congress
The Office of Technology Assessment (click here to read a nice summary of their existence) was just such a body. Without their guidance, our congress is almost entirely a bunch of Political Science / History/ Legal Majors with no background upon which to understand some of the most critical issues of our day. Everything from DMCA* to why it’s an idiotic idea to move the DST around to save energy.
This article, American Thinker- Ban the Bulb?, regarding a proposal to ban incandescent bulbs amazes me not only because of the technical irrelevance of the move, but also from the fact that all those history majors in congress do not recognize the historical trend that should even be obvious to the Luddites that claim to represent our best interests.
Beyond the issues that the above article raises, it is commonplace for technological innovations to *increase* energy consumption rather than decrease it. Be it for sociological reasons (the new bulbs are cheaper to run so I can just leave them on all the time) or technological reasons (Hey! Here’s a use for these bulbs that I wouldn’t have even considered with the old bulbs!) that drive a new demand and hence greater energy consumption.
Check out my blog entry about a book VERY relevant to this discussion and see what I mean.
*DMCA = Digital Millennium Copyright Act – Terribly short sighted legislation
It’s staggering how localized our experiences are in the context of the universe. Our expectations and perceptual experiences are so contingent on the Earth’s milieu that anything else seems far-fetched and surreal (which, I suppose, it is…).
I believe that a lot of the moon hoax proponents suffer from this as well. Certainly anybody creating science fiction movies has to cater to this somewhat limited view of reality.
2001: A Space Odyssey was one of the very few movies to try to express off-earth experience in a fairly realistic way. Space is… well… slow, quiet and inexorable. But it is also staggeringly fascinating and provides opportunities for artistic and inventive creativity that we can still only dimly grasp.
In this clip below from YouTube, the water droplets bouncing around inside an air bubble inside a larger water sphere offer a hint of this potential. The Antacid tablet in a water sphere following that is just simply cool. 🙂
You know, for such an open and free society, our government sure does some questionable things. Thankfully we *are* free enough to watchdog this sort of behavior. Now if we can just be motivated enough about it come election time to express our opinion then maybe we can show these Luddites that we won’t tolerate them constantly monkeying with our perception of reality.
I’m not particularly politically inclined, I recognize that all politicians and political groups are package deals – you are stuck taking the bad with the good. I suppose we just need to decide for ourselves what we consider “good enough” to be willing to accept the accompanying downsides and take the time to know what each of these guys brings to the table when we step behind that little curtain to cast our votes.
I spotted this in the Bad Astronomy blog. From the Union of Concerned Scientists, “The A to Z Guide to Political Interference in Science“.
