Well Urgelt, what your saying is somewhat similar to what is going on now. Genetically modified seeds and such. The fda is taking over all the organic farming. What can we do about this? Are you aware of this?
The FDA hasn't "taken over" organic farming. But their regulation of it has favored large industrial interests.
Thus far organic is still better, at least with respect to most dangerous chemicals used in other agriculture. But there are many hostile moves underway or completed, such as the rule forbidding milk producers to label their products "RBG-free."
Oops, make that "RBGH." Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone.
What can we do? Buy organic. Buy local; establish a buyer-seller relationship with local organic farmers (the more they are able to rely on local buyers, the less they must rely on big agri-industrial buyers). Write your congresscritters and make sure they know you're watching their performance on this issue. Read, stay informed. Educate people around you.
My sense of humor has been described by those who have suffered it as "ponderous."
Alas, no defense I am able to muster against the charge is at all convincing.
The really crazy thing is that in a few years, I think we'll be routinely bombarded by even more outrageous - and real - developments in genetics. I wonder if we'll think it's even ponderously funny then.
I was reading a few days ago about a very successful experiment in organ construction. An organ is harvested from a cadaver, throughly dead. It's bathed in detergent to wash away the cells, leaving behind a matrix of connective tissue. Cells from the patient are placed in the matrix, provided a nutrient bath, and allowed to regrow the organ. They've actually grown hearts from a handful of stem cells and watched them start beating on their own.
I think when the oil gets too costly we will go to liquid coal. Making coal into a liquid fuel has been around since WWII. Hitler did it when his oil ran out. In the end we will use whatever is cheapist all other considerations be damned
Coal isn't going to stay cheap. It takes a lot of mechanical work to extract coal and move it around - work that's currently done by burning petroleum. Cheap coal depended on cheap petroleum, in other words.
You can't make cheap oil from cheap coal if you don't have a cheap energy source to power the coal industry.
I'm not saying some voices might not argue for manufacturing oil out of coal. But cheap it will not be. I think we'll be able to discourage it.
Cheap? no Cheapist? maybe.... one the liquid coal gets going it can be powered by liquid coal rather then oil and as oil goes up it will become cheaper then oil at some point. Our only hope is to get a CHEAPER option that is cleaner as well. Just cleaner isn't good enough. In the end it must be the cheapist option as well
Without a doubt, economic interests exist for continuing to rely on fossil fuels well into the future.
Right now those interests are feeding at the public trough: we subsidize them, despite the largest profits of any business sector in history, and despite the grave threat their continued success poses to the survival of our descendants.
Whether my forecast is right in its particulars or not, I think our public policy needs to apply disincentives, not incentives, to fossil fuels.
There are for sure examples of stupid government actions. Here in Canada there is a HUGE MASSIVE fine if you run your car on some ulternate fuel. There is a "road tax" that is included in the price at the pump. If you have an alternate fuel car that tax has to be paid up front when it is licenced. It's about $700 a year. If you convert a car to alternate fuel after you licence it they will back charge you to when it was first licenced.
Yeah. That's a good example of the way incentives are now used to prevent the shift away from greener energy.
In Canada, I've read, there is also governmental reluctance to allow neighborhood electric vehicles on the roads, with the result that NEVs are manufactured in Canada for export, but not for sale at home.
Governmental incentivization of fossil fuels and disincentivization of green technologies is a problem that needs to be fixed.
In this case I think its just an issue that the laws have not kept pace with reality. There is no reason that cars that don't burn Gas shouldn't pay their fair share of taxes for road upkeep its just that because the normal way of doig that is with a tax on gas how to then collect that from non gas-burning cars? The answer is yearly when the plates are renewed. That does mean though that to renew the plates on a non petrol car its a nice chunk of change.
This is not intended as a disincentive and over the life of the car it all works out the same but it does create a cash flow issue. People are tempted to cheat to save the tax and/or they are unaware of the importiance of properly regestering alternate fuel cars and get themselfs in a pickle pretty quick. Not long ago a local owner of several McDonalds started running his company car on french fry oil and never changed the licence from desel.
He went in for his yearly air pollution test and came out with a $13,000 + fine for back taxes. Had he reported the change when the conversion was made and paied the six or seven hundred yearly road tax up front it would have been no issue. Here in Canada if you have a car on the road you WILL pay the part of the cost of gas that is tax at the pump even if you don't buy the gas.
His plans where brought into place After the depression was in full swing. They where tolerated because most people where aleady at the point of having nothing to loose and in the end it was a global war that made the diffrence. We can anticipate nothing else. The "bathwater" will never be thrown out until at least half the population no longer has a "baby" in the tub. In the end it will require a global war work it all out.
Case in point. The "Universal healthcare" plan that the Clintons where pushing in the 1990's. The only people that liked the idea where people who had no insurance at the time. Anyone who had insurance that was better then the projected plan rejected it out of hand. When 51% of the population has no plan or one that sucks more then the proposed plan then and only then it will pass. This means either waiting for the situation to get REALLY bad or providing a REALLY good alternative.
This is the point we are at with oil. We HAVE no REALLY GOOD alternatives. All the alternitives have something that makes them distasteful. Unless we come up with an ATTRACTIVE option we must wait for the situation to get REALLY bad.
My point I think is that our democratic process can't solve this. We are set up for the many to force unwanted change on the few and this will require the few to force change on the many. I don't see anyone who advocates real change being in office long enough. As soon as they get there someone like Nancy will ride the tide of discontent into power by giving people what they want. What they want is no change that impacts them personaly
I would not go so far as to say it cannot be solved democratically.
Don't mistake me for a starry-eyed optimist. But I think we have no choice but to throw our weight behind efforts to solve the problem of climate change. If we do not try, our chances are zero.
Franklin Roosevelt provides the model for how it might work. He faced bitter opposition to his reforms to solve the Depression, and surmounted them - and his reforms worked.
Ya know what bugs me? All these suplements. Like Glucosamine. Does this stuff do something or not? They don't advertize that it does anything really. "May promote" this or that. Santa "MAY" bring me a pony for Christmas too. Entire stores deticated to this or that ground up something or other. Most of the stuff is little more then a magic charm and as far as we know its nothing more then lawn clippings. Then at the same time the vast majority of real medications come from plants! Its so stupid.
Have you noticed all the talk about fast food burgers and fries lasting for years and not molding? While scary, it is in a way not as odd as it seems. Food is the most apt to mold when it is moist. With all the salt in it, after it dries it becomes a fossil. Try toasting a piece of bread and then covering it in salt. Your kids will have kids again before you will see any real change. Pack a raw piece of meat in enough rock salt and it will keep pretty much forever
This is all true, Its also true that it just would not be possible to find food with so much.....well FOOD in it years ago. When a whopper and fries holds the same calaries that our GGGGrand fathers ate in two days! Even if we worked like they did we would still be fat. We as humans have tastes and biology that was made to serve us when life was hard, short and unpredictable and we have made life easy, long and dependable. To the degree this is true we suffer.
You have a point. The truth is though that the point may have come for many of us where the natural survival advantage from packing away grub while it is there for a time when it would not be, may just have become too strong to avoid in our processed fat-filled world. For some, the choice could be one of dieing early from what once insured our survival or taking drastic action against our own nature. See the the films listed under youtube MGB Mini-gastric-bypass.
Hahahaha I made one to test my webcam. Its me playing the guitar. Another has a piece of music I created on a computer program. Someday I may create a rant. My kids banned me from public speaking when I used the word "turd" during a speach at a wedding.
To be fair, the quote was " I thought about going over my speach a few times and then remembered my dad used to say "you can't polish a turd" So, I will just make this up on the fly.
One big factor is inactivity. Inactivity in primitives like those who gave us our genetic inheritance is associated with disease, injury, famine and drought - all times when it is difficult for them to obtain food. Fat storage becomes more efficient. Cravings are stimulated to assure every available calorie is scrounged.
Solving cravings requires both high quality nutrition and plenty of physical activity.
Science also has learned that certain strains of intestinal bacteria are associated with obesity. Transplant those into sterile mice, and the mice grow fat eating the exact same diet - right down to the calorie - that did not make them fat before transplantation.
Other factors: physical and mental diseases, drugs, toxins, genetic variation, TV, desk jobs. If you were to press me for a summary, though, I'd say "industrial diets and inactivity are the dominant causes of obesity."
The next time you do a spoof think about the "random olympics" The international games where the contestants only learn what sport they will be in after they get there! Luck of the draw! I want to see the sumo champ in a bike race or the women's gymnists wrestling! That would be a hoot!
Now, here is an idea. Develope a turnip that REDUCES our ability to absorb food but dosen't produce gas, cramping or other intestinal issues. Find a food that would replace all the gastric bypass operations now being done. Something that sits in the stomach taking up space like a brick in a water closet and then limits how much the small intestine can absorb after that.
We all require delivery of *enough* nutrients to be healthy.
I think the problem with schemes for non-surgical nutrient blocking is selectivity. Each particular blocking agent blocks some things better than others, leading to nutrition imbalances.
Slowed sugar absorption, if not at the expense of nutrients, might do some good - but it's better still simply to avoid sugar. There really is no substitute for eating healthy foods.
It just struck me as how stupid this is. Why would we wish to reduce our "solid waste" by 90%.? Unless we have stock in a laxitive company! hahahahah just go on an all-cheese diet! Nothing will reduce your "solid waste" faster then a huge wheel of cheese!
Swapping might not work but unless we really can get that 3000 miles per charge that will mean neither will fully electric cars. Nobody will use a car that can only go a few miles and then takes all night to charge. No matter how it is done, cars must be able to be recharged/refueled quickly when a person is away from home. People will not tolerate a car that keeps them tied to their home or leaves them stranded. We may well see a hydrgen electric hybred.
That's why plug-in hybrids have such good short-term market potential.
An electric drivetrain hybrid with constant-speed ICE generator will get about double the mileage of a standard ICE car of about the same capability. It will also permit short range electric-only trips - perhaps 40 miles, as with the Volt.
Hybrids are just a bridge technology, though. I'm convinced electric cars will get us to the sort of capability we both are talking about - but it's a few decades away.
The other option for consumers is to make slight adjustments in how they think about transportation.
For example, an electric car with a 200 mile range ought to take care of almost all of the average driver's needs. An ICE car rental could take care of the rest.
Many households have more than one car, too. We are not strangers to the idea of specialized purposes for the fleets in our driveways. An electric car could make a good second vehicle.
This is possible. This will assume that gas costs more then electric. people always have and always will make their choice on cost. Not every single person. But as a group people will always go with what is cheapist
Gas *will* always cost more than electric, when it comes to transportation. It's not an assumption, it's a consequence of their physical properties.
That's because if you burn an amount of petroleum in a power plant and use the electricity to propel a car, you'll go about twice as far as you will if you burn it in an ICE-powered vehicle. Why? ICE vehicles lose most of the energy to waste heat. Engineers will probably try to cut down on waste heat from ICE operation, but it's hard.
The fuel is only the first part of story. Then comes the car itself, its upkeep and the local and personal needs. Many things that are cheap to buy are costly to use. It will all have to be there to make it work
Yep, electric cars need to deliver everything we expect in cars.
Right now, they do extremely well with maintenance costs - except for the batteries.
Battery packs are horribly expensive, they lose capacity over time, and eventually must be replaced. That cost alone tips the scales the other way.
But batteries are more like consumer electronic devices than they are like internal combustion engines. Early electronics had the same problem of cost and performance. Batteries will get better.
I see hybrids as the best answer. A plug in hydrgen electric It may run on electricity but carry enough hydrgen to take over and or recharge the batteries when the charge gets low. Some people might never even use it for anything but a insurance policy in case of a blackout
Hybrids are indeed a very attractive option, and will be for at least a few decades, I think.
But petroleum's scarcity is going to increase over time. So is the cost. Electric cars' range and performance will go up. At some point hybrids will lose their appeal - even if we discount global warming (which I most certainly do not do).
The sooner we can get away from ICE vehicles, the better, as I see it.
I understand what you are saying and I don't disagree with it. I just ment that anything we do will have to take into consideration that the people of the United states vote first and formost based on the thickness of their own checkbook at that particular moment. I don't see how the politicians can both do what is going to be needed to be done AND stay in office at the same time. The answer is higher prices and a lack of economic help to people who can't affored it.
I don't see it. Our from of government is about forcing the will of the many onto the few. Any change that works will have to effect the many. If it where the will of the many to make the hard choices it would have been done already. Everyone wants change right up to but not including when it costs them personally.
Our form of government *used* to be about majority rule.
That's pretty much lip service these days. Special interest money mostly determines who runs and who sits on the sidelines. It's becoming very hard to break the grip of special interests on public policy.
Market forces are propelling change, though. Expensive fossil fuels are encouraging innovation and investment in alternatives.
It's not a question of if, but when - and whether it will be soon enough to avert the worst scenarios.
Here is why we are doomed. Today I saw Nancy Pelosi Dem. rep from CA. Doing EXACTLY what we can expect from politicians. Asking the government to release its oil reserves to drive prices down. Only price will get anyone to conserve. But lowering costs/helping the poor pay for oil is a ticket to office. She says "Natural gas is the way to go. "It's Cheap abundant and clean unlike fossil fuels". Nobody has told her natural gas is a fossil fuel and is neither cheap abundant or "clean" it seems.
I wouldn't go so far as to say we're "doomed." But I confess I don't see a lot to be optimistic about in Ms. Pelosi's approach, which may delight T. Boone Pickens, but doesn't help much with the climate change problem.
Natural gas is cleaner than coal or petroleum, but it's still a CO2 emitter. It's part of the constellation of fossil fuels we have to phase out.
I wouldn't worry much about the price of petroleum dropping. It will be volatile, but the overall trend will be upward.
I don't think we will even consider climate change. Change when it comes will be a simple economical demand. As demand goes up and supply goes down price will go up. People will have to do without or find other options to oil
The problem is here that price is currently more a function of demand then supply. We still have a CRAPLOAD of oil. The problem is that as people shift to other things lower demand will bring down price then, lower price will drive up demand. Supply and demand will insure we will yo-yo back and forth until all the oil is gone or what is left is just to hard to get at to bother with.
In the long run, petroleum prices are headed upward. The easy oil has pretty much been tapped out. What's left is increasingly expensive to get.
Solar and wind, on the other hand, will be cheaper and more efficient. Batteries will get better, too.
So the shift away from petroleum is going to happen. I just don't know if it'll be fast enough to guarantee our survival. That's why a push from disincentives and incentives makes sense to me.
What do I mean? What happends when heating oil goes up? The government comes up with a plan to help the poor pay for the oil. When Gas goes up? They move to do what they can to lower the cost. Politicians have made a good living protecting us from the one thing that has a chance of making us change because we don't want to change and we will vote for anyone who will help us avoid that change one more day. Politics is the art of promising change on the backs of someone else.
You have a very good point. The popular thing to do is cut costs of petroleum somehow. But cutting costs will slow the transition, not speed it up.
We need to get folks to understand what a real solution looks like - it's one that motivates us to stop burning fuels and makes other approaches easier to afford.
Can we convince enough people? Can we get a good energy policy in place?
All I know is if we don't, our kids are screwed. We'd better try.
I just don't see anyone ever being willing to make transportation 100% dependent on the power grid. Its just too likely to go down during storms and such. A minor earthquake could leave millions not only witout power but with no way out of town. Anyway electricity has to be made somehow. Electric cars are no answer they are no better then alcohol burning cars it sounds good until you look into it.
Temporary interruptions in grid service don't seem as serious to me as relying on exports from dwindling reserves, 70% of which arrive from outside our country, largely from politically unstable areas.
But there may be another answer. Solar is a technology which lends itself to partially-decentralized electrical generation. In other words, we could be generating some of the power we need ourselves, once efficiencies and prices are appealing enough.
As for electric cars, I have looked into them. Extensively.
What I've learned is that: - ICE vehicles lose almost all of their fuel energy to waste heat. Electric cars use almost all of their fuel energy for propulsion. - Coal- and oil-fired electrical plants are much more efficient than ICE engines, because there is little waste heat. The heat is used to make electricity.
- Electric cars travel much further for a given level of CO2 emission. - As we phase out CO2-emitting power plants, the advantages increase. - Electric cars are simple. Fewer moving parts, less to go wrong. They have great torque, too.
The main problem with electrical cars is the batteries. Energy density for batteries is going up at a rate of about 8% annually. The density/cost ratio is improving every year.
The future looks very good for hybrids and electric cars.
See now hybreds are smart. This is an example of the kind of improvements we can put into place. having said that, they would not be as popular as they are if the price of fuel was not so high. High prices are the only thing that will ever make us switch to smarter ways of doing things. This is why I fear we will never solve the issue. As soon as prices increase enough to pinch enough people's budget that we start to change, politics takes over and someone gets elected who will stop it.
Every time you change energy from one form to another you loose some in the form of heat. Add to that the loss that comes from "resistance" when the power is transmitted from where it is generated.. Electric cars COULD work if we all moved to an urban center and all our driving was city driving but I don't see that happening. The united states is what it is because half of us live in small towns and suburbs. Most of us would rather go back to a horse and buggy then do that.
Sure, there's energy losses in the electrical approach. But they're pretty tiny compared to heat loss in an ICE. *Most* of the energy in gasoline is lost. If you burn that gas at a power plant and take losses moving it to an electric car, you come out way ahead. Electric is much more efficient.
Your notion that electric cars have limited utility is correct for "neighborhood electric vehicles," which rely on older battery technologies.
Look forward. At an 8% range improvement per year, battery capacity for about the same cost doubles every 9 years. If that rate doesn't accelerate - I think it may - in about 36 years, high-end batteries will take you over 3000 miles on a charge at highway speeds.
Electric cars will be *better* than ICE cars - for anything and everything.
Ya well, good luck with that. The day a electric car charge can last 300 miles and can be recharged in 10 minutes that will be good enough. Frankly I don't see that happening but if it does then great. I am not holding my breath
300 miles? At the rate things are progressing, that's going to be about 7-8 years out (2015-16) for high-end electric cars. Cheap cars will get there in another 5-6 years, I think (2020-21).
Different analysts make different forecasts. But everyone agrees battery capacity is improving steadily and will continue to do so.
As for 10 minute charging, that's harder. You need a pretty darned heavy-duty electricity flow to fill up an electric car's batteries that fast. That means our standard 110-220 volt electrical systems won't cut the mustard.
I suspect what we'll see instead is very long ranges and overnight recharging. When ranges reach more than 800 miles, which should happen in the 2030's, who cares if you have to stop overnight to recharge? That's a long day of driving.
There is another solution being promoted by some companies: standardized battery packs that can be swapped out at a "gas" station when depleted. You'd pay for the charge plus a handling fee and profit for the operator.
I don't think that idea is going to get off the ground. As ranges rise, the necessity for instant gratification in charging is going to diminish.
This actually makes sence to me. If they batterys where small enough. It would be like a propane BBQ tank. You swap an empty one for a full one. You pay only a deposit on the battery itself and pay for the power and the install. This could be done in five minutes if a station was set up for it. Issue there is chicken before the egg. Cars have to exist to build the stations and stations have to exist to make the cars worth building.
I think swapping won't work. - We don't have standards for battery packs. - It's hard to establish standards because battery designs are changing so quickly. - Battery packs are very expensive. What gas station owner can afford to stock hundreds of battery packs? - By the time batteries are stable, cheap and standardized, their capacities will be much greater. The need for swapping will be less and less critical as time passes.
Electric cars. They where the future until a few yeas ago when Calafornia had all those brown outs and someone started looking around and said "Crap! what if we had gone to 100% electric cars?" Even so we have to make electricty some how by buring someting. As prices go up we will come up with other options to make the oil stretch but we just will not stop buring, we just won't do it. We will burn it until it is 90% gone and then we will kill each other in a global war to control the last 10%
I think the global wars will start long before the last 10%.
They've already started.
Brownouts are a function of the electrical infrastructure. There's no doubt we need to build up that infrastructure. We'd have to anyway.
Electric cars will mostly be charging at night. That's good; peaks are in daytime. That means the existing infrastructure can handle millions of electric cars right now.
But we'll need more infrastructure anyway - both energy sources and power transmission.
Not going to happen. Its just not. Nothing short of a dictorial and draconian global government that will force change in people against their will is going to do this. No democratic government could stay in power if they inflicted this kind of change on people and nobody is going to force the developing nations to stop developing. We will burn coal and oil until it is either all gone, we are all dead or it becomes more costly then all other alternitives.
A lot of people are waking up. Electric cars are getting a lot of buzz. Businesses are responding. Billions are now being spent annually on battery technology alone, and that's only one sector.
Gas prices are forcing us to recognize that our dependence on oil is hurting us in direct economic ways. Coal will go up, too - because its production is heavily reliant on petroleum.
All we need to make the switch, really, are moderate incentives and disincentives.
I agree, the motive of course would be to be able to turn excess C02 into methane to use as fuel. Turning unwated C02 into a fuel sounds too good to resist. But think if it gets out! I never fail to be amazed by cutting edge scientists and how flipping stupid they can be sometimes.
I think we have to stop burning fuels. That includes fuels we made, and fuels we found.
Wind, solar, geothermal, hydrothermal, hydrokenetic energy sources should be perfectly adequate for our needs. All are technically feasible. Several are commercially feasible, or very close to it.
If we can switch our energy infrastructure to non-burning sources, we might just have a chance of making it through this warming period. But I don't think we have much time to piddle around.
This is very funny however its not all that far from the truth. In a world where half the population will die from a lifetime of being too fat, you can bet there are people trying to figure out how make our digestive systems get MORE from the food that we already eat too much of. There are people even trying to create a bacteria that turns C02 into Methane.
How nice, turn one greenhouse gas into another that is 10 times as damaging and hope to God it dosen't excape into the environment!
Reference should be made to important work being done on root crops in the same field ....... somewhere in eastern Poland, I believe ........ by Victor Dmitrievitch Huliganov.
This man, who has a terrific voice, although a 'heffy Rossian exscent', may be heard/seen on YouTube.
I particularly like his rendition of 'Myfanwy', an Olt Velsh Loff Sonk.
I guarantee that you will too, Urgelt [On record from Ang-Lo and A.M.I.]
Obviously this could provide food initially for the near-humans .... say the apes .... but it would need to be made presentable to them in some liquid way, perhaps, by using local water from some stream that they were happy to drink and making a kind of dessert dish out of it by mixing it with some local fruit also.
A sort of .......... ape-rill 'fool'.
Anybody want to try it out ......... in the Cause for the Rapid Advancement of Progress?
I knew your video was a hoax going in, but you're correct about the effect of an authoritative voice. It was also chilling because of a news story I can recall involving human-cow or horse hybrids (from England) to be used in stem cell research... My friend and I have the only "news and notes" style radio show broadcasting from our college and you have re-energized my desire to play a few more tricks. Is there a text version of this post kicking around someplace?
Not on the web, but if you write to me with your e-mail address and ask for the text, I'll send it to you.
There is a thin line to walk with any hoax. On one side of the line, things are kept good-natured, silly, amusing, perhaps self-mocking. On the other, it's darker, more cruel, insulting of your audience. Be sure to spend some time figuring out if you've crossed the line before you air.
I enjoyed the puns you've tactfully placed during your video. When I was reading through the old comments I was intrigued how many of your fans just took your word on face value -- despite your persistent reminders of remaining skeptical to anything one hears. Am I mistaken in noticing some effort in your face to suppress laughter?
Heh, no mistake. My poker face wouldn't get me far in Las Vegas. :P
This is intended as humor, but it points out a bit of a problem we have. When an authoritative voice is speaking to us via media, we believe it. It's why advertising works, and it's why there is profit to be made in lying to us via mainstream media.
If there's a profit to be had, someone will go after it. And they do, vigorously.
More accurately, to keep them from being damaged by frost.
One might think that flounder antifreeze in tomatoes would be no more harmful to consume than antifreeze in flounders.
But it isn't necessarily so. There's a soup of different biochemicals in a tomato; the recombinant possibilities, both in the tomato and in consumers, isn't really understood.
If there's a profit in it, safety often takes a back seat in the food industry. I'll stick to organic foods as much as possible.
Ah, you make a brilliant point sir. Trouble is, no matter HOW far back I go to verify my sources of information, I could just find more dross; be it anti-GM eco-nuts, corporate soothsayers etc. I agree no-one deserves my unquestioning belief, but that makes it extremely difficult to get anything done. I was hungry earlier, but am now viewing my crisps with the utmost suspicion..
Yes. A skeptic is a busy person. Life is a never-ending series of risk assessments.
That's why I try to teach principles: choose foods with as little processing as possible, seek nutritional variety, avoid added chemicals in foods, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, etc. Principles speed decision-making.
Then the nation must be retarded or something because campared to you my sister that graduated from OU and having a validictorian at highschool graduation seems dumb
Pseudoscience is terribly easy to concoct and sell, which is my point here, however amusingly presented. All that stands between liars and our wallets is our skepticism.
true about the turnips health effects, but the flying cars have not yet been proven impossible to make, perhaps they thought we'd be in aircars now and were wrong, but what about later in time? =]
Maybe. If we had a cheap source of energy that did not contribute to global warming, we could probably handle the other design issues: making personal flier controls as simple as automobile controls, deconflicting traffic, automating routing, fail-safes, etc.
We have nothing like that available today. If everyone jumped into personal fliers, we'd increase oil consumption drastically.
I'm certain many of the words I spoke in this video are pronounced at odds with British sensiblities. Most British citizens I know just smile and say "what can you do, he's a Yank."
Well, I don't mind those things it's just that Edinburgh is a British city and I'm the type of person who tries to pronounce place names as closely as possible to the way the natives do.
Your accent is consistant with the mid-west. The great lakes area to be exact. I would guess no more the a few miles from Grand Rapids Michigan. I grew up in that area and my kids drew my attention too your posts. "Dad come check this guy out! he looks and sounds like you! hahahahaha
in star trek they used portable machines to talk over distances. ppl said this could never be real, or created... now we have the cell phone, we proved them wrong.
So u say this doesnt exist (i know u made it up) but what if its just like star trek? in 10 years we'll be eating AP01 super turnips, and obesity will be gone! =] SKINNYVILLE HERE I COME!
Heh, you make a great point. Today's imaginative speculation can become tomorrow's reality.
Not all imaginative speculation succeeds, however. Back in the '30's it was popular to imagine that that we would be flying personal aircars by now.
In this case, reducing the flow through intestines by 90% would probably be fatal to humans. So I think it's safe to bet against AP01-modified turnips, heh.
i had no question that it was true also even with april fools but it was an obviously not obvious thing sins were way past that date :P, but if it were true atleast keep it out of baby's mought, i mean if you can prevent something bad in the future generation, that could save humanity :P . i wonder how coffee or other drugs would be absorbed... nasty!
Nah. My knowledge is too shallow on these subjects, not to mention my lack of qualifications.
The only reason I feel justified in opening a dialogue in these videos is this: we should not need a PhD to make good decisions when we are choosing foods and talking to doctors. Possessing some level of understanding of these topics is necessary and desireable.
I couldn't agree more... You seem very qualified to me, Urgelt, because an enthusiastic interest and a capacity to teach far outweight institutional credentials, in real life anyway. Best of luck to you in everything!
I've got nothing against credentialled teachers and subject matter experts. Indeed, I rely on them. But knowledge belongs to humanity, not just to experts.
What we know about nutrition and health can make a big difference in our lives, so it's surely worth having a conversation.
even though i read "april fool's" at the title i was completly fooled by the video. i believed almost everything. no questions asked!
I HAVE TO THANK YOU. "Be a skeptic! Trust, but verify! Nobody deserves your unquestioning belief, least of all me". that sums it all up. we are being fooled dayly. so much that we don't realise it, and don't react.
scientific genious.. if only it were real... Did you come up with that on your own? if you did you're quite knowledgeable in biology, on top of being a literary genious.
I can blame no-one but myself for this prevarication, I'm afraid.
And it doesn't take actual expertise in biology to fake it. It takes an understanding of how to use the *language* of science. Alas, that's a lesson known all too well to scam artists.
Science really does offer hope of easing the misery of billions and reaching Mars, both. Not all science is conducted for idealistic purposes, but some is.
It's lots easier to make science up from scratch than to build it carefully through hypothesis and experiment, heh. I tip my hat to the real scientists of the world. :-)
I have the luxury of watching this after the so-called "cat" was out of the bag, but I would have probably believed every word out of Urgelt's ornery mouth! What a stinker! (No pun intended!)
makes it sound real....haha
rashin 2 years ago
It's joke people read the heading a long overdrawn joke.
lj111500 2 years ago
10 per cent less poo, chuck another turnip on the barbi
20atlas20 2 years ago
Yet another great Scottish invention!
cinemascotland 2 years ago
HAHAHAHA omg this video is so funny!!!
so much can happen by just reducing the amount we poop lol
BrettakaKatana 2 years ago
Well Urgelt, what your saying is somewhat similar to what is going on now. Genetically modified seeds and such. The fda is taking over all the organic farming. What can we do about this? Are you aware of this?
EasyHardLivin 3 years ago
It's a subject I follow with interest.
The FDA hasn't "taken over" organic farming. But their regulation of it has favored large industrial interests.
Thus far organic is still better, at least with respect to most dangerous chemicals used in other agriculture. But there are many hostile moves underway or completed, such as the rule forbidding milk producers to label their products "RBG-free."
Urgelt 3 years ago
Oops, make that "RBGH." Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone.
What can we do? Buy organic. Buy local; establish a buyer-seller relationship with local organic farmers (the more they are able to rely on local buyers, the less they must rely on big agri-industrial buyers). Write your congresscritters and make sure they know you're watching their performance on this issue. Read, stay informed. Educate people around you.
Urgelt 3 years ago
not good for poo samples!
creidsinn 3 years ago
This is such an elaborate hoax Urgelt, well done. Certainly made my day.
TheTwoEducators 3 years ago
My sense of humor has been described by those who have suffered it as "ponderous."
Alas, no defense I am able to muster against the charge is at all convincing.
The really crazy thing is that in a few years, I think we'll be routinely bombarded by even more outrageous - and real - developments in genetics. I wonder if we'll think it's even ponderously funny then.
Urgelt 3 years ago
So true. Some scientists say that it will be possible to "print out" red blood cells on a standard printer, in the future.
ArcticChilli 3 years ago
I was reading a few days ago about a very successful experiment in organ construction. An organ is harvested from a cadaver, throughly dead. It's bathed in detergent to wash away the cells, leaving behind a matrix of connective tissue. Cells from the patient are placed in the matrix, provided a nutrient bath, and allowed to regrow the organ. They've actually grown hearts from a handful of stem cells and watched them start beating on their own.
Wild stuff happening out there.
Urgelt 3 years ago
interesting
gdogbalint 2 years ago
I think when the oil gets too costly we will go to liquid coal. Making coal into a liquid fuel has been around since WWII. Hitler did it when his oil ran out. In the end we will use whatever is cheapist all other considerations be damned
realsamwise 3 years ago
Coal isn't going to stay cheap. It takes a lot of mechanical work to extract coal and move it around - work that's currently done by burning petroleum. Cheap coal depended on cheap petroleum, in other words.
You can't make cheap oil from cheap coal if you don't have a cheap energy source to power the coal industry.
I'm not saying some voices might not argue for manufacturing oil out of coal. But cheap it will not be. I think we'll be able to discourage it.
Urgelt 3 years ago
Cheap? no Cheapist? maybe.... one the liquid coal gets going it can be powered by liquid coal rather then oil and as oil goes up it will become cheaper then oil at some point. Our only hope is to get a CHEAPER option that is cleaner as well. Just cleaner isn't good enough. In the end it must be the cheapist option as well
realsamwise 3 years ago
Without a doubt, economic interests exist for continuing to rely on fossil fuels well into the future.
Right now those interests are feeding at the public trough: we subsidize them, despite the largest profits of any business sector in history, and despite the grave threat their continued success poses to the survival of our descendants.
Whether my forecast is right in its particulars or not, I think our public policy needs to apply disincentives, not incentives, to fossil fuels.
Urgelt 3 years ago
There are for sure examples of stupid government actions. Here in Canada there is a HUGE MASSIVE fine if you run your car on some ulternate fuel. There is a "road tax" that is included in the price at the pump. If you have an alternate fuel car that tax has to be paid up front when it is licenced. It's about $700 a year. If you convert a car to alternate fuel after you licence it they will back charge you to when it was first licenced.
realsamwise 3 years ago
Yeah. That's a good example of the way incentives are now used to prevent the shift away from greener energy.
In Canada, I've read, there is also governmental reluctance to allow neighborhood electric vehicles on the roads, with the result that NEVs are manufactured in Canada for export, but not for sale at home.
Governmental incentivization of fossil fuels and disincentivization of green technologies is a problem that needs to be fixed.
Urgelt 3 years ago
In this case I think its just an issue that the laws have not kept pace with reality. There is no reason that cars that don't burn Gas shouldn't pay their fair share of taxes for road upkeep its just that because the normal way of doig that is with a tax on gas how to then collect that from non gas-burning cars? The answer is yearly when the plates are renewed. That does mean though that to renew the plates on a non petrol car its a nice chunk of change.
realsamwise 3 years ago
This is not intended as a disincentive and over the life of the car it all works out the same but it does create a cash flow issue. People are tempted to cheat to save the tax and/or they are unaware of the importiance of properly regestering alternate fuel cars and get themselfs in a pickle pretty quick. Not long ago a local owner of several McDonalds started running his company car on french fry oil and never changed the licence from desel.
realsamwise 3 years ago
He went in for his yearly air pollution test and came out with a $13,000 + fine for back taxes. Had he reported the change when the conversion was made and paied the six or seven hundred yearly road tax up front it would have been no issue. Here in Canada if you have a car on the road you WILL pay the part of the cost of gas that is tax at the pump even if you don't buy the gas.
realsamwise 3 years ago
His plans where brought into place After the depression was in full swing. They where tolerated because most people where aleady at the point of having nothing to loose and in the end it was a global war that made the diffrence. We can anticipate nothing else. The "bathwater" will never be thrown out until at least half the population no longer has a "baby" in the tub. In the end it will require a global war work it all out.
realsamwise 3 years ago
Case in point. The "Universal healthcare" plan that the Clintons where pushing in the 1990's. The only people that liked the idea where people who had no insurance at the time. Anyone who had insurance that was better then the projected plan rejected it out of hand. When 51% of the population has no plan or one that sucks more then the proposed plan then and only then it will pass. This means either waiting for the situation to get REALLY bad or providing a REALLY good alternative.
realsamwise 3 years ago
This is the point we are at with oil. We HAVE no REALLY GOOD alternatives. All the alternitives have something that makes them distasteful. Unless we come up with an ATTRACTIVE option we must wait for the situation to get REALLY bad.
realsamwise 3 years ago
Predicting the future is an uncertain business.
Without a doubt, there will be resistance to change, arising from both self-interest and ignorance.
Also without a doubt, climate change will progress a long ways towards the brink before many will climb on board efforts to resolve it.
How these variables will play out is uncertain.
I do not think it is a foregone conclusion that humanity is doomed, but I must concede that, at the least, the risk is very grave.
Urgelt 3 years ago
My point I think is that our democratic process can't solve this. We are set up for the many to force unwanted change on the few and this will require the few to force change on the many. I don't see anyone who advocates real change being in office long enough. As soon as they get there someone like Nancy will ride the tide of discontent into power by giving people what they want. What they want is no change that impacts them personaly
realsamwise 3 years ago
I would not go so far as to say it cannot be solved democratically.
Don't mistake me for a starry-eyed optimist. But I think we have no choice but to throw our weight behind efforts to solve the problem of climate change. If we do not try, our chances are zero.
Franklin Roosevelt provides the model for how it might work. He faced bitter opposition to his reforms to solve the Depression, and surmounted them - and his reforms worked.
Urgelt 3 years ago
Ya know what bugs me? All these suplements. Like Glucosamine. Does this stuff do something or not? They don't advertize that it does anything really. "May promote" this or that. Santa "MAY" bring me a pony for Christmas too. Entire stores deticated to this or that ground up something or other. Most of the stuff is little more then a magic charm and as far as we know its nothing more then lawn clippings. Then at the same time the vast majority of real medications come from plants! Its so stupid.
realsamwise 3 years ago
Have you noticed all the talk about fast food burgers and fries lasting for years and not molding? While scary, it is in a way not as odd as it seems. Food is the most apt to mold when it is moist. With all the salt in it, after it dries it becomes a fossil. Try toasting a piece of bread and then covering it in salt. Your kids will have kids again before you will see any real change. Pack a raw piece of meat in enough rock salt and it will keep pretty much forever
realsamwise 3 years ago
This is all true, Its also true that it just would not be possible to find food with so much.....well FOOD in it years ago. When a whopper and fries holds the same calaries that our GGGGrand fathers ate in two days! Even if we worked like they did we would still be fat. We as humans have tastes and biology that was made to serve us when life was hard, short and unpredictable and we have made life easy, long and dependable. To the degree this is true we suffer.
realsamwise 3 years ago
You have a point. The truth is though that the point may have come for many of us where the natural survival advantage from packing away grub while it is there for a time when it would not be, may just have become too strong to avoid in our processed fat-filled world. For some, the choice could be one of dieing early from what once insured our survival or taking drastic action against our own nature. See the the films listed under youtube MGB Mini-gastric-bypass.
realsamwise 3 years ago
Hahahaha I made one to test my webcam. Its me playing the guitar. Another has a piece of music I created on a computer program. Someday I may create a rant. My kids banned me from public speaking when I used the word "turd" during a speach at a wedding.
realsamwise 3 years ago
I'll join your kids in urging restraint, heh.
Urgelt 3 years ago
To be fair, the quote was " I thought about going over my speach a few times and then remembered my dad used to say "you can't polish a turd" So, I will just make this up on the fly.
realsamwise 3 years ago
There's more to the story - a lot more.
One big factor is inactivity. Inactivity in primitives like those who gave us our genetic inheritance is associated with disease, injury, famine and drought - all times when it is difficult for them to obtain food. Fat storage becomes more efficient. Cravings are stimulated to assure every available calorie is scrounged.
Solving cravings requires both high quality nutrition and plenty of physical activity.
Urgelt 3 years ago
Science also has learned that certain strains of intestinal bacteria are associated with obesity. Transplant those into sterile mice, and the mice grow fat eating the exact same diet - right down to the calorie - that did not make them fat before transplantation.
Other factors: physical and mental diseases, drugs, toxins, genetic variation, TV, desk jobs. If you were to press me for a summary, though, I'd say "industrial diets and inactivity are the dominant causes of obesity."
Urgelt 3 years ago
The next time you do a spoof think about the "random olympics" The international games where the contestants only learn what sport they will be in after they get there! Luck of the draw! I want to see the sumo champ in a bike race or the women's gymnists wrestling! That would be a hoot!
realsamwise 3 years ago
Sounds like you should be making videos, Sam.
Urgelt 3 years ago
Now, here is an idea. Develope a turnip that REDUCES our ability to absorb food but dosen't produce gas, cramping or other intestinal issues. Find a food that would replace all the gastric bypass operations now being done. Something that sits in the stomach taking up space like a brick in a water closet and then limits how much the small intestine can absorb after that.
realsamwise 3 years ago
We all require delivery of *enough* nutrients to be healthy.
I think the problem with schemes for non-surgical nutrient blocking is selectivity. Each particular blocking agent blocks some things better than others, leading to nutrition imbalances.
Slowed sugar absorption, if not at the expense of nutrients, might do some good - but it's better still simply to avoid sugar. There really is no substitute for eating healthy foods.
Urgelt 3 years ago
It just struck me as how stupid this is. Why would we wish to reduce our "solid waste" by 90%.? Unless we have stock in a laxitive company! hahahahah just go on an all-cheese diet! Nothing will reduce your "solid waste" faster then a huge wheel of cheese!
realsamwise 3 years ago
Stupid, you say?
Who wouldn't want concrete bowels? :P
Urgelt 3 years ago
Swapping might not work but unless we really can get that 3000 miles per charge that will mean neither will fully electric cars. Nobody will use a car that can only go a few miles and then takes all night to charge. No matter how it is done, cars must be able to be recharged/refueled quickly when a person is away from home. People will not tolerate a car that keeps them tied to their home or leaves them stranded. We may well see a hydrgen electric hybred.
realsamwise 3 years ago
That's why plug-in hybrids have such good short-term market potential.
An electric drivetrain hybrid with constant-speed ICE generator will get about double the mileage of a standard ICE car of about the same capability. It will also permit short range electric-only trips - perhaps 40 miles, as with the Volt.
Hybrids are just a bridge technology, though. I'm convinced electric cars will get us to the sort of capability we both are talking about - but it's a few decades away.
Urgelt 3 years ago
The other option for consumers is to make slight adjustments in how they think about transportation.
For example, an electric car with a 200 mile range ought to take care of almost all of the average driver's needs. An ICE car rental could take care of the rest.
Many households have more than one car, too. We are not strangers to the idea of specialized purposes for the fleets in our driveways. An electric car could make a good second vehicle.
Urgelt 3 years ago
This is possible. This will assume that gas costs more then electric. people always have and always will make their choice on cost. Not every single person. But as a group people will always go with what is cheapist
realsamwise 3 years ago
Gas *will* always cost more than electric, when it comes to transportation. It's not an assumption, it's a consequence of their physical properties.
That's because if you burn an amount of petroleum in a power plant and use the electricity to propel a car, you'll go about twice as far as you will if you burn it in an ICE-powered vehicle. Why? ICE vehicles lose most of the energy to waste heat. Engineers will probably try to cut down on waste heat from ICE operation, but it's hard.
Urgelt 3 years ago
The fuel is only the first part of story. Then comes the car itself, its upkeep and the local and personal needs. Many things that are cheap to buy are costly to use. It will all have to be there to make it work
realsamwise 3 years ago
Yep, electric cars need to deliver everything we expect in cars.
Right now, they do extremely well with maintenance costs - except for the batteries.
Battery packs are horribly expensive, they lose capacity over time, and eventually must be replaced. That cost alone tips the scales the other way.
But batteries are more like consumer electronic devices than they are like internal combustion engines. Early electronics had the same problem of cost and performance. Batteries will get better.
Urgelt 3 years ago
I see hybrids as the best answer. A plug in hydrgen electric It may run on electricity but carry enough hydrgen to take over and or recharge the batteries when the charge gets low. Some people might never even use it for anything but a insurance policy in case of a blackout
realsamwise 3 years ago
Hybrids are indeed a very attractive option, and will be for at least a few decades, I think.
But petroleum's scarcity is going to increase over time. So is the cost. Electric cars' range and performance will go up. At some point hybrids will lose their appeal - even if we discount global warming (which I most certainly do not do).
The sooner we can get away from ICE vehicles, the better, as I see it.
Urgelt 3 years ago
You have a talent for the understatement.
realsamwise 3 years ago
I understand what you are saying and I don't disagree with it. I just ment that anything we do will have to take into consideration that the people of the United states vote first and formost based on the thickness of their own checkbook at that particular moment. I don't see how the politicians can both do what is going to be needed to be done AND stay in office at the same time. The answer is higher prices and a lack of economic help to people who can't affored it.
realsamwise 3 years ago
It won't be easy, I agree. It's an uphill fight.
Urgelt 3 years ago
I don't see it. Our from of government is about forcing the will of the many onto the few. Any change that works will have to effect the many. If it where the will of the many to make the hard choices it would have been done already. Everyone wants change right up to but not including when it costs them personally.
realsamwise 3 years ago
Our form of government *used* to be about majority rule.
That's pretty much lip service these days. Special interest money mostly determines who runs and who sits on the sidelines. It's becoming very hard to break the grip of special interests on public policy.
Market forces are propelling change, though. Expensive fossil fuels are encouraging innovation and investment in alternatives.
It's not a question of if, but when - and whether it will be soon enough to avert the worst scenarios.
Urgelt 3 years ago
Here is why we are doomed. Today I saw Nancy Pelosi Dem. rep from CA. Doing EXACTLY what we can expect from politicians. Asking the government to release its oil reserves to drive prices down. Only price will get anyone to conserve. But lowering costs/helping the poor pay for oil is a ticket to office. She says "Natural gas is the way to go. "It's Cheap abundant and clean unlike fossil fuels". Nobody has told her natural gas is a fossil fuel and is neither cheap abundant or "clean" it seems.
realsamwise 3 years ago
I wouldn't go so far as to say we're "doomed." But I confess I don't see a lot to be optimistic about in Ms. Pelosi's approach, which may delight T. Boone Pickens, but doesn't help much with the climate change problem.
Natural gas is cleaner than coal or petroleum, but it's still a CO2 emitter. It's part of the constellation of fossil fuels we have to phase out.
I wouldn't worry much about the price of petroleum dropping. It will be volatile, but the overall trend will be upward.
Urgelt 3 years ago
I don't think we will even consider climate change. Change when it comes will be a simple economical demand. As demand goes up and supply goes down price will go up. People will have to do without or find other options to oil
realsamwise 3 years ago
The problem is here that price is currently more a function of demand then supply. We still have a CRAPLOAD of oil. The problem is that as people shift to other things lower demand will bring down price then, lower price will drive up demand. Supply and demand will insure we will yo-yo back and forth until all the oil is gone or what is left is just to hard to get at to bother with.
realsamwise 3 years ago
There will be yo-yoing in the short run, sure.
In the long run, petroleum prices are headed upward. The easy oil has pretty much been tapped out. What's left is increasingly expensive to get.
Solar and wind, on the other hand, will be cheaper and more efficient. Batteries will get better, too.
So the shift away from petroleum is going to happen. I just don't know if it'll be fast enough to guarantee our survival. That's why a push from disincentives and incentives makes sense to me.
Urgelt 3 years ago
What do I mean? What happends when heating oil goes up? The government comes up with a plan to help the poor pay for the oil. When Gas goes up? They move to do what they can to lower the cost. Politicians have made a good living protecting us from the one thing that has a chance of making us change because we don't want to change and we will vote for anyone who will help us avoid that change one more day. Politics is the art of promising change on the backs of someone else.
realsamwise 3 years ago
You have a very good point. The popular thing to do is cut costs of petroleum somehow. But cutting costs will slow the transition, not speed it up.
We need to get folks to understand what a real solution looks like - it's one that motivates us to stop burning fuels and makes other approaches easier to afford.
Can we convince enough people? Can we get a good energy policy in place?
All I know is if we don't, our kids are screwed. We'd better try.
Urgelt 3 years ago
I just don't see anyone ever being willing to make transportation 100% dependent on the power grid. Its just too likely to go down during storms and such. A minor earthquake could leave millions not only witout power but with no way out of town. Anyway electricity has to be made somehow. Electric cars are no answer they are no better then alcohol burning cars it sounds good until you look into it.
realsamwise 3 years ago
Temporary interruptions in grid service don't seem as serious to me as relying on exports from dwindling reserves, 70% of which arrive from outside our country, largely from politically unstable areas.
But there may be another answer. Solar is a technology which lends itself to partially-decentralized electrical generation. In other words, we could be generating some of the power we need ourselves, once efficiencies and prices are appealing enough.
I don't think we have long to wait for it.
Urgelt 3 years ago
As for electric cars, I have looked into them. Extensively.
What I've learned is that: - ICE vehicles lose almost all of their fuel energy to waste heat. Electric cars use almost all of their fuel energy for propulsion. - Coal- and oil-fired electrical plants are much more efficient than ICE engines, because there is little waste heat. The heat is used to make electricity.
Urgelt 3 years ago
- Electric cars travel much further for a given level of CO2 emission. - As we phase out CO2-emitting power plants, the advantages increase. - Electric cars are simple. Fewer moving parts, less to go wrong. They have great torque, too.
The main problem with electrical cars is the batteries. Energy density for batteries is going up at a rate of about 8% annually. The density/cost ratio is improving every year.
The future looks very good for hybrids and electric cars.
Urgelt 3 years ago
See now hybreds are smart. This is an example of the kind of improvements we can put into place. having said that, they would not be as popular as they are if the price of fuel was not so high. High prices are the only thing that will ever make us switch to smarter ways of doing things. This is why I fear we will never solve the issue. As soon as prices increase enough to pinch enough people's budget that we start to change, politics takes over and someone gets elected who will stop it.
realsamwise 3 years ago
Every time you change energy from one form to another you loose some in the form of heat. Add to that the loss that comes from "resistance" when the power is transmitted from where it is generated.. Electric cars COULD work if we all moved to an urban center and all our driving was city driving but I don't see that happening. The united states is what it is because half of us live in small towns and suburbs. Most of us would rather go back to a horse and buggy then do that.
realsamwise 3 years ago
Sure, there's energy losses in the electrical approach. But they're pretty tiny compared to heat loss in an ICE. *Most* of the energy in gasoline is lost. If you burn that gas at a power plant and take losses moving it to an electric car, you come out way ahead. Electric is much more efficient.
Urgelt 3 years ago
Your notion that electric cars have limited utility is correct for "neighborhood electric vehicles," which rely on older battery technologies.
Look forward. At an 8% range improvement per year, battery capacity for about the same cost doubles every 9 years. If that rate doesn't accelerate - I think it may - in about 36 years, high-end batteries will take you over 3000 miles on a charge at highway speeds.
Electric cars will be *better* than ICE cars - for anything and everything.
Urgelt 3 years ago
Ya well, good luck with that. The day a electric car charge can last 300 miles and can be recharged in 10 minutes that will be good enough. Frankly I don't see that happening but if it does then great. I am not holding my breath
realsamwise 3 years ago
300 miles? At the rate things are progressing, that's going to be about 7-8 years out (2015-16) for high-end electric cars. Cheap cars will get there in another 5-6 years, I think (2020-21).
Different analysts make different forecasts. But everyone agrees battery capacity is improving steadily and will continue to do so.
Urgelt 3 years ago
As for 10 minute charging, that's harder. You need a pretty darned heavy-duty electricity flow to fill up an electric car's batteries that fast. That means our standard 110-220 volt electrical systems won't cut the mustard.
I suspect what we'll see instead is very long ranges and overnight recharging. When ranges reach more than 800 miles, which should happen in the 2030's, who cares if you have to stop overnight to recharge? That's a long day of driving.
Urgelt 3 years ago
There is another solution being promoted by some companies: standardized battery packs that can be swapped out at a "gas" station when depleted. You'd pay for the charge plus a handling fee and profit for the operator.
I don't think that idea is going to get off the ground. As ranges rise, the necessity for instant gratification in charging is going to diminish.
Urgelt 3 years ago
This actually makes sence to me. If they batterys where small enough. It would be like a propane BBQ tank. You swap an empty one for a full one. You pay only a deposit on the battery itself and pay for the power and the install. This could be done in five minutes if a station was set up for it. Issue there is chicken before the egg. Cars have to exist to build the stations and stations have to exist to make the cars worth building.
realsamwise 3 years ago
I think swapping won't work. - We don't have standards for battery packs. - It's hard to establish standards because battery designs are changing so quickly. - Battery packs are very expensive. What gas station owner can afford to stock hundreds of battery packs? - By the time batteries are stable, cheap and standardized, their capacities will be much greater. The need for swapping will be less and less critical as time passes.
It's a doomed business model, in other words.
Urgelt 3 years ago
Electric cars. They where the future until a few yeas ago when Calafornia had all those brown outs and someone started looking around and said "Crap! what if we had gone to 100% electric cars?" Even so we have to make electricty some how by buring someting. As prices go up we will come up with other options to make the oil stretch but we just will not stop buring, we just won't do it. We will burn it until it is 90% gone and then we will kill each other in a global war to control the last 10%
realsamwise 3 years ago
I think the global wars will start long before the last 10%.
They've already started.
Brownouts are a function of the electrical infrastructure. There's no doubt we need to build up that infrastructure. We'd have to anyway.
Electric cars will mostly be charging at night. That's good; peaks are in daytime. That means the existing infrastructure can handle millions of electric cars right now.
But we'll need more infrastructure anyway - both energy sources and power transmission.
Urgelt 3 years ago
Not going to happen. Its just not. Nothing short of a dictorial and draconian global government that will force change in people against their will is going to do this. No democratic government could stay in power if they inflicted this kind of change on people and nobody is going to force the developing nations to stop developing. We will burn coal and oil until it is either all gone, we are all dead or it becomes more costly then all other alternitives.
realsamwise 3 years ago
I'm not so sure about that.
A lot of people are waking up. Electric cars are getting a lot of buzz. Businesses are responding. Billions are now being spent annually on battery technology alone, and that's only one sector.
Gas prices are forcing us to recognize that our dependence on oil is hurting us in direct economic ways. Coal will go up, too - because its production is heavily reliant on petroleum.
All we need to make the switch, really, are moderate incentives and disincentives.
Urgelt 3 years ago
I agree, the motive of course would be to be able to turn excess C02 into methane to use as fuel. Turning unwated C02 into a fuel sounds too good to resist. But think if it gets out! I never fail to be amazed by cutting edge scientists and how flipping stupid they can be sometimes.
realsamwise 3 years ago
Yeah.
I think we have to stop burning fuels. That includes fuels we made, and fuels we found.
Wind, solar, geothermal, hydrothermal, hydrokenetic energy sources should be perfectly adequate for our needs. All are technically feasible. Several are commercially feasible, or very close to it.
If we can switch our energy infrastructure to non-burning sources, we might just have a chance of making it through this warming period. But I don't think we have much time to piddle around.
Urgelt 3 years ago
This is very funny however its not all that far from the truth. In a world where half the population will die from a lifetime of being too fat, you can bet there are people trying to figure out how make our digestive systems get MORE from the food that we already eat too much of. There are people even trying to create a bacteria that turns C02 into Methane.
How nice, turn one greenhouse gas into another that is 10 times as damaging and hope to God it dosen't excape into the environment!
realsamwise 3 years ago
I'm not sure, but I have a sinking feeling that the types of bacteria found in commercial yogurt may improve calorie extraction.
It's an area that definitely needs a lot of fresh research. We really need to know which bacteria does what.
Science Daily reported that methane is about 25 times as potent as a greenhouse gas, compared with CO2.
It's very hard to imagine that any bacteria used in an industrial process will not find its way into the environment.
Urgelt 3 years ago
this is sooo added to my favorites
ADFHOOLIGANS 3 years ago
"And Quacker Oats sticks to your bones . . ."
rhinofarley 3 years ago
Exactly, heh. Every day is April Fool's Day in the food industry.
Urgelt 3 years ago
Reference should be made to important work being done on root crops in the same field ....... somewhere in eastern Poland, I believe ........ by Victor Dmitrievitch Huliganov.
This man, who has a terrific voice, although a 'heffy Rossian exscent', may be heard/seen on YouTube.
I particularly like his rendition of 'Myfanwy', an Olt Velsh Loff Sonk.
I guarantee that you will too, Urgelt [On record from Ang-Lo and A.M.I.]
Tom,
Liverpool, European Capital of Culture, 2008
LORNATOM 3 years ago
He's hilarious, right enough. :-)
Urgelt 3 years ago
Fascinating!
Obviously this could provide food initially for the near-humans .... say the apes .... but it would need to be made presentable to them in some liquid way, perhaps, by using local water from some stream that they were happy to drink and making a kind of dessert dish out of it by mixing it with some local fruit also.
A sort of .......... ape-rill 'fool'.
Anybody want to try it out ......... in the Cause for the Rapid Advancement of Progress?
Tom, Liverpool, Merry England
LORNATOM 3 years ago
Heh, like may news anchors, I'm willing to report science, but not eager to experience it. :P
Urgelt 3 years ago
I'm dumping all my toilet paper stock right now!
burtoncharlessmith 3 years ago
Heh!
Urgelt 3 years ago
I knew your video was a hoax going in, but you're correct about the effect of an authoritative voice. It was also chilling because of a news story I can recall involving human-cow or horse hybrids (from England) to be used in stem cell research... My friend and I have the only "news and notes" style radio show broadcasting from our college and you have re-energized my desire to play a few more tricks. Is there a text version of this post kicking around someplace?
Regards,
-Nathan
nwmccurdy 3 years ago
Not on the web, but if you write to me with your e-mail address and ask for the text, I'll send it to you.
There is a thin line to walk with any hoax. On one side of the line, things are kept good-natured, silly, amusing, perhaps self-mocking. On the other, it's darker, more cruel, insulting of your audience. Be sure to spend some time figuring out if you've crossed the line before you air.
Urgelt 3 years ago
I enjoyed the puns you've tactfully placed during your video. When I was reading through the old comments I was intrigued how many of your fans just took your word on face value -- despite your persistent reminders of remaining skeptical to anything one hears. Am I mistaken in noticing some effort in your face to suppress laughter?
Sahanie 4 years ago
Heh, no mistake. My poker face wouldn't get me far in Las Vegas. :P
This is intended as humor, but it points out a bit of a problem we have. When an authoritative voice is speaking to us via media, we believe it. It's why advertising works, and it's why there is profit to be made in lying to us via mainstream media.
If there's a profit to be had, someone will go after it. And they do, vigorously.
Urgelt 4 years ago
Holy cow,I took this seriously. Scared the crap out of me.
BricknerGuitars 4 years ago
I'm still fooling people with this old thing? Heh.
Be skeptical, friend Bruce, there are scoundrels about. :-)
Urgelt 4 years ago
wow. I heard Tomatoes have been modified with cold water flounder genes to keep them from thawing.
msie821 4 years ago
More accurately, to keep them from being damaged by frost.
One might think that flounder antifreeze in tomatoes would be no more harmful to consume than antifreeze in flounders.
But it isn't necessarily so. There's a soup of different biochemicals in a tomato; the recombinant possibilities, both in the tomato and in consumers, isn't really understood.
If there's a profit in it, safety often takes a back seat in the food industry. I'll stick to organic foods as much as possible.
Urgelt 4 years ago
lol...when did you give this it's full title "April fool's..." the day after...or a week later?...love ur vids btw...think they're great...
tabula123456 4 years ago
I retitled it on April 1 late in the evening. I managed to fox a few viewers with this video. Happily, my viewers don't hold grudges. Much. :P
Urgelt 4 years ago
hooha! Go Urgelt! What does "urgelt" stand for?
DominickBlack 4 years ago
It's just a pseudonym.
Urgelt 4 years ago
This is a joke?
DominickBlack 4 years ago
A prank, a pseudo-science hoax for April Fool's Day.
Urgelt 4 years ago
Ah, you make a brilliant point sir. Trouble is, no matter HOW far back I go to verify my sources of information, I could just find more dross; be it anti-GM eco-nuts, corporate soothsayers etc. I agree no-one deserves my unquestioning belief, but that makes it extremely difficult to get anything done. I was hungry earlier, but am now viewing my crisps with the utmost suspicion..
lordhaku 4 years ago
Yes. A skeptic is a busy person. Life is a never-ending series of risk assessments.
That's why I try to teach principles: choose foods with as little processing as possible, seek nutritional variety, avoid added chemicals in foods, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, etc. Principles speed decision-making.
Dump the crisps, have an apple. :-)
Urgelt 4 years ago
Then the nation must be retarded or something because campared to you my sister that graduated from OU and having a validictorian at highschool graduation seems dumb
Hunterery 4 years ago
ummm lol did you got to yale??
Hunterery 4 years ago
Ivy League? Goodness, no. A pedestrian education in public schools for me. I'm about as far from the "elite" as you can get.
Urgelt 4 years ago
Wow.
Brilliant. Saddening, honest, and witty.
You now officially have another fan.
blairvoyant 4 years ago
Och, I was being *dishonest* in this video. :P
Pseudoscience is terribly easy to concoct and sell, which is my point here, however amusingly presented. All that stands between liars and our wallets is our skepticism.
I hope your wallet is suitably defended! :-)
Urgelt 4 years ago
haha this bloody guy is mad i cant stop laughin @ him!
djdan58 4 years ago
Heh. My idea of humor isn't for everyone. I'm glad got a laugh out of it. :-)
Urgelt 4 years ago
true about the turnips health effects, but the flying cars have not yet been proven impossible to make, perhaps they thought we'd be in aircars now and were wrong, but what about later in time? =]
Sankekor 4 years ago
Maybe. If we had a cheap source of energy that did not contribute to global warming, we could probably handle the other design issues: making personal flier controls as simple as automobile controls, deconflicting traffic, automating routing, fail-safes, etc.
We have nothing like that available today. If everyone jumped into personal fliers, we'd increase oil consumption drastically.
Urgelt 4 years ago
Sorry, I am compelled as a Brit to point out to you that "Edinburgh" is actually pronounced "Edinbura".
ElliottReidyFrey 4 years ago
It is in Great Britain. Not in America.
I'm certain many of the words I spoke in this video are pronounced at odds with British sensiblities. Most British citizens I know just smile and say "what can you do, he's a Yank."
Urgelt 4 years ago
Well, I don't mind those things it's just that Edinburgh is a British city and I'm the type of person who tries to pronounce place names as closely as possible to the way the natives do.
ElliottReidyFrey 4 years ago
That's reasonable, up to a point.
I'd love to hear your pronunciation of "New Orleans" compared to that of a native. :-)
Urgelt 4 years ago
Damn you and your clever point-making skills.
ElliottReidyFrey 4 years ago
Your accent is consistant with the mid-west. The great lakes area to be exact. I would guess no more the a few miles from Grand Rapids Michigan. I grew up in that area and my kids drew my attention too your posts. "Dad come check this guy out! he looks and sounds like you! hahahahaha
realsamwise 3 years ago
Heh, you're quite right. I grew up in Southern Michigan. Grand Rapids is a few hours drive from my old home.
Urgelt 3 years ago
See,there ya go. I grew up 65 miles NE of Grand Rapids
realsamwise 3 years ago
in star trek they used portable machines to talk over distances. ppl said this could never be real, or created... now we have the cell phone, we proved them wrong.
So u say this doesnt exist (i know u made it up) but what if its just like star trek? in 10 years we'll be eating AP01 super turnips, and obesity will be gone! =] SKINNYVILLE HERE I COME!
Sankekor 4 years ago
Heh, you make a great point. Today's imaginative speculation can become tomorrow's reality.
Not all imaginative speculation succeeds, however. Back in the '30's it was popular to imagine that that we would be flying personal aircars by now.
In this case, reducing the flow through intestines by 90% would probably be fatal to humans. So I think it's safe to bet against AP01-modified turnips, heh.
Urgelt 4 years ago
Urgelt, you're my new favorite!
georgiepeorgie 4 years ago
Urgelt, you my new favorite!
georgiepeorgie 4 years ago
All things are transient. You'll soon find another. :-)
Urgelt 4 years ago
i had no question that it was true also even with april fools but it was an obviously not obvious thing sins were way past that date :P, but if it were true atleast keep it out of baby's mought, i mean if you can prevent something bad in the future generation, that could save humanity :P . i wonder how coffee or other drugs would be absorbed... nasty!
Slayer7666COF 4 years ago
Heh, yeah. :P
Urgelt 4 years ago
Good stuff! You should be a professor somewhere.
lutheranguy 4 years ago
Nah. My knowledge is too shallow on these subjects, not to mention my lack of qualifications.
The only reason I feel justified in opening a dialogue in these videos is this: we should not need a PhD to make good decisions when we are choosing foods and talking to doctors. Possessing some level of understanding of these topics is necessary and desireable.
Urgelt 4 years ago
I couldn't agree more... You seem very qualified to me, Urgelt, because an enthusiastic interest and a capacity to teach far outweight institutional credentials, in real life anyway. Best of luck to you in everything!
lutheranguy 4 years ago
Thanks, Luther.
I've got nothing against credentialled teachers and subject matter experts. Indeed, I rely on them. But knowledge belongs to humanity, not just to experts.
What we know about nutrition and health can make a big difference in our lives, so it's surely worth having a conversation.
Urgelt 4 years ago
Thanks for the wisdom and laughs. I appreciate the reminder to check facts & be a healthy sceptic. I have a new crush *blush*. Take Air, Bee
NaloMeli 4 years ago
Glad you liked it, Bee, but... a crush? Yikes, now we'll both be blushing furiously! :P
Urgelt 4 years ago
its the fella of the fast show
bunnylodge 4 years ago
love it!!!!....Urgelt is da man!!!
rudispider 4 years ago
even though i read "april fool's" at the title i was completly fooled by the video. i believed almost everything. no questions asked!
I HAVE TO THANK YOU. "Be a skeptic! Trust, but verify! Nobody deserves your unquestioning belief, least of all me". that sums it all up. we are being fooled dayly. so much that we don't realise it, and don't react.
philip86myt 4 years ago
Well said, Philip.
Urgelt 4 years ago
well, i guess his beard hiddens his smile
noontj 4 years ago
thought this was way kool, Urgelt-keep-em coming,Great stuff.Ha! Ha ! Love You, Janice K.
JaniceKayJ 4 years ago
Good one!!
robtran 4 years ago
lol
rangeresmee 4 years ago
scientific genious.. if only it were real... Did you come up with that on your own? if you did you're quite knowledgeable in biology, on top of being a literary genious.
Pyroman162 4 years ago
I can blame no-one but myself for this prevarication, I'm afraid.
And it doesn't take actual expertise in biology to fake it. It takes an understanding of how to use the *language* of science. Alas, that's a lesson known all too well to scam artists.
Urgelt 4 years ago
even if it is a joke, the idealism is quite profound...
phillipicus 4 years ago
Well, yes, in a way you're right, Phillipicus.
Science really does offer hope of easing the misery of billions and reaching Mars, both. Not all science is conducted for idealistic purposes, but some is.
Urgelt 4 years ago
"fascinating" -Spock, Consumption of Turnips could savd the world...
phillipicus 4 years ago
A totally plausible and detailed report by an extremely trustworthy persona. A delicious April Fools joke.
fenisnad 4 years ago
I'll have to work pretty hard to fool anyone next year, though! :-)
Urgelt 4 years ago
NO S**T!! ok sorry couldn't resist.
L8nitedave 4 years ago
Heh, neither could I, that's the core of the joke. :-)
Urgelt 4 years ago
hahaha very good
migimon 4 years ago
I know that I would be hampered in my emotional development without my excrement! Fantastic video, as usual!
lynxxy 4 years ago
Heh, that was a little over the top. :-)
Urgelt 4 years ago
Dude, I have a degree in the sciences and even worked in a research lab...you had me going for a minute there!!!
You really have a researchers mind...which is very creative and abstract.
maraljan 4 years ago
It's lots easier to make science up from scratch than to build it carefully through hypothesis and experiment, heh. I tip my hat to the real scientists of the world. :-)
Urgelt 4 years ago
i dont know what just happened
conroy099 4 years ago
You had me going till NASA...lol...very clever.
votya23 4 years ago
Mars, here we come! :-)
Urgelt 4 years ago
in germany we say April April after fool someone ahha :-D
tinotrivino 4 years ago
Hehe.
Urgelt 4 years ago
I have the luxury of watching this after the so-called "cat" was out of the bag, but I would have probably believed every word out of Urgelt's ornery mouth! What a stinker! (No pun intended!)
quiverfull 4 years ago
Heh, yep, that I am. :-)
Urgelt 4 years ago
This was a great April Fools Day joke! I never would have expected it from you. You are so convincing LOL! Bravo.
Minniver 4 years ago
Glad you got a chuckle, Minniver. :-)
Urgelt 4 years ago
way to go,so funny, thank you, now, next, what about chocolate?? how did you keep your face straight and your voice so serious?
spiritryder 4 years ago
Chocolate? What about it, Spiritryder?
I kept my face straight and voice serious by editing out the bits where I laughed like a hyena, heh.
Urgelt 4 years ago