| (pas de sujets) |
[fév. 4e, 2010|11:42 am] |
climate change
sustainability
please write an essay of any length on one or both of these subjects. tell us what you think the significance of them is, and anything else you might want to add.
you can post your essay on your own journal, or here as a comment. you can, if you feel inclined, tag some of your friends, or, repost the original prompt, if you think this is worthy of meme-dom.
(I know this sort of solicitation rarely works on livejournal, or at least, with my livejournal readers. but I thought I'd try anyway. I'm genuinely curious.) |
|
|
| (pas de sujets) |
[fév. 1er, 2010|07:44 pm] |
sorry I havent posted in a while. I guess I dont have much to say these days. I really need to write a proposal for my independent study, and submit a div II contract. I guess the only reason these are hard is that I know what I want them to be, and they're both exceedingly simple. not much to write, you know? independent study: "prone bike with spindle hub." div II: "design and fabrication with an emphasis on sustainable technology." actually, it's even simpler- "design, fabrication and sustainability." it's interesting, I'm reading a copy of "limits to growth, the thirty year update" that Tim left me. I miss Tim. but it's interesting to finally be reading the stuff that my population teachers were so steadfastly against. I'm so frustrated by that class, all over again. those teachers should be run out of town for perjury. obstruction of education. terrible people, they are, for their willful ignorance.
there are two new people in my house, one of which I knew before he moved in, the other, I did not. they both are awesome, though. Sarah's a vegetarian math major who does yoga and rock climbing, and Zach is a video gaming pothead who studies english and astrophysics.
I'm going to cut a new hub shell tomorrow. I've just decided. my bearings came last week. Don showed me a tool company this morning that makes a tool that countersinks two sides of a hole in one pass. I forgot the name of the company, but I can ask Don again tomorrow. and on thursday I can cut the spindle, and the spacer.
I dropped my calculus and physics classes. I wasn't motivated enough to stick with either of them. Anne and Sarah were disappointed in this decision, but I'm sure it was the right one. I'm now taking climate change science, instead, which is taught by a devastatingly handsome Umass professor, at a pace which is quite slow, but also really very thorough. and two classes plus an independent study is really good, I think.
I'm also earning some money, because I've been working at Lemelson a couple hours a day. things are going well. sorry for the boring nature of this update. Love |
|
|
| (pas de sujets) |
[jan. 20e, 2010|03:37 pm] |
I'm gonna get a new computer.
I need to be able to run solidworks.
I might get a laptop from my cousin peter,
or else I'll just get a mac mini, which is kindof my ideal, but might cost more, after I get a monitor.
wood stoves: definitely viable.
just check out the nineteenth century example photographed at wikipedia's page.
the image is too big, so I'll just give you the link:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Lincoln_stove.jpg
the important thing about this image is that it demonstrates some of the very many uses a wood stove can serve. it's kindof like the cornerstone of civilization.
you can cook on it, you can bake in it, you can boil water with it, you can use the boiled water for cleaning dishes, clothes, and people, or to make tea. or coffee! you can dry your laundry by hanging it near the stove. you can heat your iron on it, and iron your laundry. not to mention the fact that it keeps your house warm in even the coldest days of winter.
I'm also convinced that solid fuel can be used to make specialty grade espresso. if something like this modern woodstove (designed to provide for the heat, hot water, and cooking needs of a whole house) can put out fifty thousand british thermal units, something could just as easily be designed to make steam for espresso. "heats up to twelve radiators." I'm pretty sure that means I can run three or four groups and two steam wands.
I also found a single item of academic interest, a paper, which found that EPA guidelines don't really make a huge difference in terms of reducing smoke. this has confirmed my impression that whether your fire burns hot enough to be clean depends more on you, and less on the design. |
|
|
| (pas de sujets) |
[jan. 18e, 2010|11:15 am] |
my itunes is looking all Ani diFranco, the page on my browser is worldofsolitaire, and the google search bar has lady gaga in it. this can mean only one thing.
by the way, "hell yeah" is a really good song. |
|
|
| (pas de sujets) |
[jan. 12e, 2010|11:53 pm] |
is it really too much to ask to be judged by my actions?
I've often heard that actions speak louder than words,
and to me it's true. but so many people don't seem
to be able to hear them at all. |
|
|
| random stuff |
[jan. 11e, 2010|09:39 pm] |
I feel great.
I was sick all weekend. I'm healthy today. this is good because I need to be riding to smith a lot. class has started.
solidworks. it's good fun. the teacher is patient, and good. unlike the jackass egotist student who taught/tutored an informal class last year. I got paired with a probably trans guy who calls himself jake, and we were having a lot of fun with the program. jake's primarily an art student. we played around with the parts we were modeling, like punching random holes in them, making bubble letters that said "ribbit" next to a part that looked like a frog ...which we colored green. there's time to play around while everyone is working out how to do the step that the teacher just assigned.
I bought neoprene boot covers to keep my toes from freezing. I need to figure out when I can leave my down jacket liner behind, because unless it gets pretty far below freezing, it's too warm for biking. but how many layers will I need to replace it?
I use a lot of water and heat energy to wash myself. I have taken nothing but baths all semester. I love to soak, but a washcoth can clean as well without using more than a fraction of the water. I use little water and heat energy for laundry, compared to most in my position, though, because I wear my clothes often without washing them, and always wash in cold water, yadda yadda yadda, amelia isn't even reading anymore, because she doesn't care.
I think every car should be available in a superlight version. like, a little more expensive, but a little better fuel economy (and improved stopping distance and acceleration and handling compared to heavier versions, too). you know, like lots of cars have a sport edition, or a luxury version. there should be a lightweight option, even if it isn't good enough to be called superlight. I think a twenty-five cent tax on gallons of petroleum products would go a long way to making people bike more. like I talked about in my last post. but it would also encourage the kind of fuel efficient automotive option that I'm talking about, and the kind of fuel efficient automotive option that I'm talking about would make a tax like that all the more bearable.
all this to say that there are so many solutions. the only real problem is that the world doesnt embrace them. |
|
|
| how do you make a society prefer bicycles? tax gasoline. |
[jan. 4e, 2010|07:20 pm] |
if I were the president, I would hold a press conference, in which I would tell americans to "go ride a bike." I might, in fact, say not one word more than "go ride a bike."
but then, if i'd gotten elected as president, america wouldn't need to be told.
it was just that I was thinking about how bicycles solve everything.
I've written about this here before, but I'm not sure if I've ever said it quite like this:
bicycles are the solution.
if americans started riding bikes regularly,
1: we'd all be healthier. I don't know the numbers, but seriously, obesity and diabetes would go down. people would smoke fewer cigarettes, and lower their risk of heart disease. this would save our economy huge sums of money.
2: we'd need a lot less gasoline. we wouldn't have to be fighting wars for oil. an insurgency can't exist without the occupier, so we could all just go home. the only reason we're still there is that certain powerful people think that we need "stability in the region" so that we can continue to get oil from the middle east. if we didn't need the petroleum, we wouldn't need to keep fighting. I don't know what we're going to do about the situation now that we're over there, but I have a feeling that if we started sending bicycles instead of tanks, and giving them to people, rather than killing people, we could go home tomorrow. by weight, the steel it takes to produce a tank could be used to produce a heck of a lot of bicycles. after giving bicycles to every afghan or iraqi man, woman, and child, there'd be plenty of steel left over to build other useful things, too. like schools, hospitals, and running water.
3: a bicycle minded country is also a train minded country. we'd start building railroads, if we cared about bikes more than cars. we'd spend less money on interstates, as they'd be supported only by the freight companies that would insist on using them. warren buffet could build more train lines, for both passengers and freight, and this would make things better, too. because then we'd actually have the network of transportation that every other developed country in the world has- one that we've needed for a long time, and have avoided because interstate highways were easier.
4: the economy. maybe this is just a repetition of items 1, 2, and 3, but if we weren't fighting stupid self perpetuating wars, and if we weren't wasting so much money on healthcare, and if we weren't spending so much money on gasoline, we'd be a much richer country.
5: we'd pollute less. this is its own reward, and I shouldn't even have to explain that to anyone. we'd be able to have real bargaining power with other countries on environmental issues. the reason copenhagen failed, although you'll never read it in the media (at least, not in so many words), is that we americans weren't willing to accept that the majority of the problem is our fault. nor were we willing to accept that the majority of the solution is our responsibility- whether that be from the perspective of fault, or from the perspective of ability to make a difference, matters not.
the only problem facing modern american society today that bicycles wouldn't solve is the education problem. with that one exception, though, bicycles are the solution to everything. |
|
|
| (pas de sujets) |
[déc. 26e, 2009|06:52 pm] |
|
I want to stop letting other people determine who my friends are. even if those other people are my friends. shit, I mean, especially if they are. |
|
|
| (pas de sujets) |
[déc. 25e, 2009|09:07 am] |
I really want to meet this person |
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
| |
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
blue_banshee