ARCS Workshop and other Geeky issues, Nerdcore Culture, Local and International Politics

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Just about to take the silver bird a short distance to Adelaide, where I'll be attending and presenting at the ARCS Video Collaboration Workshop. If you're a fan of Big Science then it doesn't get bigger than this (hat-tip, csamuel). Microsoft believes that six degrees of separation is true - after checking 30 billion emails. MIT researchers developing solar-powered fuel cells to save the world energy problems? (from mundens

I have a stack of old D&D material for sale on ebay and with more coming soon. My review of Chaosium's Basic Role Playing has been published on rpg.net. In general I think they've done a good job applying a 'thin glue' to a suite of games whose core system hasn't changed that much since 1978 (which is a credit to the original design). Last Sunday imajica_lj ran the first session of the classic Call of Cthulhu 'Masks of Nyarlathotep' which will incorporated with the equally classic 'Horror on the Orient Express'. On other nerdcore related activity on Saturday myself, _zombiemonkey, caseopaya and severina_242 went to see the The Dark Knight. I rated it average-good (and I simply don't 'get' claims of brilliance); Heath Ledger's performance as The Joker was excellent as was (and much understated) Gary Oldman's as Commissioner Gordon.

In other local political news, the federal Liberals have been really struggling over whether climate change is a reality and whether emissions trading is the proper solution to deal with the problem. The Liberals are tearing themselves apart and although the deniers have been defeated, the party is yet have made no policy development on the matter. Kerry O'Brien takes Nelson to task on the issue.

Internationally, any claims that the upcoming US Presidential election may be even remotely close are completely wrong. John McCain promoting his very own neverending war - a brilliant expose of his total warmongring dishonesty; via usekh). Longest serving Republican, Senator Ted Stevens indicated for felony of $250K worth of gifts from an oil company. Meanwhile the Chinese continue to show why even in a worst case scenario I'd prefer Pax Americana to Pax Sino; sending a teacher to a labour camp who took photos of the Sichuan earthquake and banning worship at Tibetan monastries deemed to be promoting national self-determination.

Comments

[decrypt-era.livejournal.com]

That story from MIT seems a little mangled,
esp considering it's published on one of their own sites.
Essentially what they'v got is a catalyst which aids the electrolysis of water;
how this becomes "a process which mimics photosynthesis", i don't know.
Here i was hoping for a vat of phytobacteria
which could directly generate electric potentials! Sigh.

Th article gets something right tho -
the crucial technology to enable renewable energy sources is energy storage.
For stationary applications, i vote for the vanadium redox battery.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

The main advantages of the vanadium redox battery is that it can offer almost unlimited capacity simply by using larger and larger storage tanks, it can be left completely discharged for long periods with no ill effects, it can be recharged simply by replacing the electrolyte if no power source is available to charge it, and if the electrolytes are accidentally mixed the battery suffers no permanent damage.

That's great!

Well, you know more about this sort of stuff than I do. The MIT story caught my attention and yes - as you say - I would be fascinated to see how it mimics photosynthesis as well.

Mmmm.. Tree batteries.