Blog 30: Headache

I have a headache today so I am attempting to temper it by writing. Woot. Usually when I am trying to distract myself from work I look at cars on Autotrader. GREAT site, very efficient, and probably the best car site I know of. Works well to both research and search for cars. Man, I would LOVE to have a new Jeep. Used to have a 95 Wrangler which had a 3 inch suspension lift on it. It was like having a non-stop seizure cause the shocks were blown and it was just bouncy as hell. Few things in the world made me want to kill everything more than driving over a speed bump in that thing, especially cause the speed bumps in old town Alexandria are like 7 feed wide. SEVEN FEET WIDE! Who makes a speed bump like that?? Anyway. I still want a new Jeep, one of those 4 door dealies that suck gas like no tomorrow. Yea. That's what daddy likes. Take that Environment! But, I digress, I am very pro environment. I try to do my part, little recycling here, little gardening there. I grew up in a household where we put more in the ground than most people. Though I do not know if I am sold on the whole recycling thing. And people for some reason seem to associate Eating Organic food as helping the environment to a degree as on par with recycling. I mean I understand it a BIT, but not too much. I mean, having chickens not in a cage doesn't really do much for the environment other than perhaps make it smell worse. I think the national mindset is being changed by advertising and chit chat. Let us take a few examples. There has been a big push for WIND energy lately. Now let us consider this, this is a tech that has been around since, oh I don't know, WINDMILLS. Why now? Simple, SOMEONE is making money off of it. Now you may say, "Well, jolly pip, (apparently because you are British, or at least the pseudo British I would make you be) Wind energy is nicer to the environment than nasty old methods out there now". Really? Well what about hydroelectric power. In my opinion one of the BEST out there. Disrupts water ways you say? Not really, that is what engineers are FOR, is to make them safe, and think about it, a big windmill getting wind as it passes, versus a huge honkin DAM that is powered ALL THE TIME. Well, that is me supporting hydroelectric anyway, but my point is that all this green energy is propaganda and someone somewhere is just making money. Now I'm all for not spewing tons of junk into the air because we burn coal... oh wait a minute.... what is my job again? Oh that is right! I work on patents for EXHAUST SYSTEMS. I know just how much stuff goes into the atmosphere from those things and it is NOT MUCH. I mean the tech that they have in there is HUGE to get rid of everything that is harmful. Catalysts and reducing agents and filters upon filters. Heck, for a decent number of stuff out there you could almost suck on the exhaust. Don't, this is not me advocating that, but still. But I do agree combustibles will soon be a way of the past NOT because of pollution, but because they are crazily inefficient. Something like 20-30% of the potential power is actually used AT THE VERY BEST. That is terrible. But, a means to an end, and if convincing everyone that pollution is a problem with these things gets better tech out there who am I to argue. But if I was to pitch the truly good tech that I would LOVE to see out there. Nuclear power. Problem with so much of the tech out there is that SOMETHING SOMEWHERE bad happened and was played up with propaganda and no one will forget it. Nuclear power - Trinoble. Needless to say that we are WAY better than that, and THAT scenario was unique into itself. Hydrogen Power - Hydenberg, which doesn't even make much sense as a comparison. Additionally gasoline WAY more flammable than Hydrogen and WAY more dangerous. But we have been convinced of ... well... incorrect facts. Would you drive a car that ran on A) Gasoline, B) Alcohol, C) Hydrogen or D) Nuclear Power? Gasoline - very powerful, very efficient in its own right, and actually burns down to near water and air. The real problem is older cars where people don't replace their catalytic converters and have crappy engines. Alcohol - thought to be a great idea, not a lot of power though. You'd be refilling every 60 miles, now THAT would make for a crappy commute. Hydrogen - Powerful, and efficient, not a great way to carry a lot of it though, but easily as safe as gasoline. Nuclear Power - perfect. You wouldn't need to refill for more than a YEAR. Did you know Nuclear Submarines and Naval ships only refill every 2 YEARS! And that is a big friggin boat! And there is plenty of tech out there to make sure it would be safe to use. You think we have to worry about meltdowns and radiation? I mean we have hundreds of ships out there that don't, you don't think we could build a car to handle it? Anyway, it is just my take on a lot of this, and the facts are out there for whomever wants them. I just wanted to ramble a bit until my headache medicine kicked in, which I believe it has. So I shall back to work go. Boo work, but hooray no headache. Overall, mild win.

20070193586
Now THAT is a condom.
http://www.google.com/patents?id=An-EAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4&source=gbs_overview_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false