Good Afternoon, Good Evening

One of the best possible uses of a dollar bill. A dead president becomes an elephant.

Good Afternoon

This morning, I spent a little time working on my post on the concept of a turbine future. I just felt compelled to write something a little different.

I had my coffee this morning, so I am feeling pretty good. I spent an hour and a half weeding the social sciences books, then I spent another hour and a half going over social science titles to buy.

As usual, I found something interesting to order, The First Billion Is The Hardest, Reflections On A Life of Comebacks and America's Energy Future by T. Boone Pickens. This book is supposed to have a complete description of his energy plan and investments in alternative energy. If this is true, it would be an interesting opportunity for exploring some green investments.

I got a few minutes to look at the new books which came in. I put a few books on display, and put aside two items to read, Impact, How To Get Noticed, Motivate Millions, and Make a Difference in a Noisy World by Ken McArthur and Rebel Visions The Underground Comix Revolution 1963-1975 by Patrick Rosenkrantz. This book is published by Fantagraphics which is my favorite of the alternative comic book publishers. Fantagraphics publishes The Comics Journal. This book is definitely for adults. It has mature content. The book lists a lot of very interesting comics artists, Bill Griffith, R. Crumb, Vaughn Bode, Richard Corben, Kim Deitch, Denis Kitchen, Dan O'Neill, Art Spiegelman, Trina Robbins, and many others.

This morning, I also spent some more time reading Groundswell. It is describing how to put together message boards, blogs, and community sites for corporations. It even gives some guidelines on how to choose which type of social networking tool for a company. I think I will finish reading it on the train home tonight.

Now, that I am not clicking away at Entrecard, I got a chance to look at some book sites.

This is a rather interesting article from Library Journal. http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6592086.html?desc=topstory

It is absolutely true in my experience that we cannot provide enough computers with internet access at our library. From the moment we open to the moment we close there are people waiting to use computers to get internet access. We expand the internet access and more people come to use the computers. People get an hour to use the internet per day. At my local library, there is usually a waiting list for the computers as well. I usually have to wait for half an hour to a full hour to get the computers.

Like many of the people waiting for the computers at the library I work at, I am looking for some light reading while I wait. Many people read graphic novels (comic books), magazines, or the newspapers while they are waiting for their turn. I usually read graphic novels while I am waiting if I go to my local library.

I was looking at Locus magazine and saw an interesting book which I want to get for the library (as well as for my own reading) Cory Doctorow, Content: Selected Essays On Technology, Creativity, Copyright and the Future of the Future. Cory Doctorow is a fairly important figure in the history of intellectual freedom on the internet. This is a brief bio from his site.

http://craphound.com/bio.php

A Turbine Powered Future

A Turbine Powered Future

In the 1962 Chrysler built a turbine car and also in 1977. http://www.allpar.com/mopar/turbine.html . In 2006 as a promotional stunt, GM built an "eco-jet" biodiesel turbine car. They promoted the car with Jay Leno. http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/10/gm_and_jay_leno.html

Both of these seem far fetched to most people, however if you look beyond the basics to more advanced concept cars, you see a very interesting possibility of a turbine electric car.

Volvo recently built a environmental concept car that runs on turbine electric combination. Although, it is a gas turbine, there is no reason that a turbine car has to run on gas. Turbines should be able to burn almost any fuel. http://www.lacar.com/lenfrank/volvoecc.htm In the Xprize contest there is a concept car called the Velozzi which is a microturbine electric system. It is supposed to get 200 mpg. http://www.velozzi.org/

What is currently being produced are Designline buses which use a microturbine electric system powered by Capstone Turbine. http://www.capstoneturbine.com/prodsol/solutions/other.asp Designline is the bus company that is using the Capstone hybrid electric turbine.
Sometimes you wonder what would have happened if some more of the kinks were worked out in the early turbine cars. Things could be quite different now. Turbines can run on a variety of fuels.

There are examples of truck turbine engines. http://www.ttengines.com/home2.html

The M1A1 Abrams tank is built on a turbine engine platform. However, it is a fuel hog and probably could use an overhaul with a multi-turbine system or turbine electric sytesm. Tanks are basically tracked vehicles. There is no reason that heavy equipment like tractors, cranes, and other large wheeled or tracked vehicles could not use a turbine engine system

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Also for a while there was an attempt to build an efficient turbine powered train The Jet Train which never caught on in the United States.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JetTrain

On the smaller scale, There is the Marine Turbine superbike which is an incredibly fast high powered motorcycle. http://www.marineturbine.com/motorcycles.asp . Jay Leno has one of these too. It is kind of interesting. I didn't expect this.

A turbine is basically a type of engine and can replace many types of internal combustion engine.

More important than transportation is the use of turbines in windmills and other places. We are supposed to potentially get 10% of the United States energy needs from wind power which is intermittent. Wind power for the most part is generated from turbines.

Another possibility for energy is wave energy turbines.In New York harbor near Roosevelt Island, tidal powers are being tested. This has as much potential for energy production as wind mills. http://www.dec.ny.gov/environmentdec/35380.htmlhttp://www.dec.ny.gov/environmentdec/35380.html

To further make things interesting, there is no reason that turbine technology will remain static. New hydroelectric systems called Run of the River Systems are being developed that are much more environmentally friendly.http://www.dec.ny.gov/environmentdec/35380.html

Because I am invested in Capstone Turbine I have an interest in this kind of thing. Apparently Capstone Turbine with Heliofocus has developed a solar concentrator system which uses heated air to power a turbine instead of liquids.http://www.greenoptimistic.com/2008/08/03/65kw-solar-powered-micro-turbine/

There are other forms of energy which use turbine technology. Geothermal uses a steam driven turbine. There are also small scale high efficiency nuclear turbines. Biomass burning plants can use turbine systems.

I think in the long run, a switch away from internal combustion engines to either a hybrid turbine electric or all electric system would be beneficial. One of the main advantages of turbine engines is that they can burn any fuels. Another application of microturbines is in landfill gasification projects. Microturbines are an ideal platform to burn biogas from landfills as well as gas produced from solid waste like animal wastes to make electricity.

There is no reason that jet engines cannot use biofuels. Just to prove a point Green Flight International did an around the world flight on 100% biofuel. http://www.greenflightinternational.com/goals.htm

I see a greener future. This is a tremendous investment opportunity for those who are not afraid. It also could be hugely beneficial for the world economy not just the United States economy. I believe in a green collar future. Often the best choices in technology are not made, the ones that are expedient are the ones that are taken.

Entrecard. Good Afternoon

Entrecard

As you know, I am not satisfied with Entrecard. I want my account deleted. With this kind of policy, I am not sure that I will get my account deleted unless I am very pushy.

You cannot delete your own account, but you can request deletion. To do this, first ensure you are signed into the account you wish to delete. Now go to the Feedback form on the Dashboard and write a message saying that you would like to delete your account. We will reply to you and confirm that you really want to delete your account.

Deleted accounts will lose all of their credits, all ads will be cancelled, and your site will no longer be in our system. Please do not request account deletion unless you are absolutely certain that it's what you want to do.

Ah, now I did it. I cancelled all the advertisements on my Entrecard dashboard, then sent my remaining 405 credits to the Thin Red Line. Now my account should be zeroed out.

Good Afternoon

Once again, I spent most of my day looking up social science books for purchase. This includes investing and military books. I found a book which looked quite interesting. As you know if you read my blog regularly, I am very interested in green investing. I placed Green Investing on hold by Jack Ulrich. Thomas Friedman has a new book that looks quite interesting. I think it will be a bestseller Hot, Flat, and Crowded, Why We Need A Green Revolution and How it Will Renew America. I believe strongly in green investing.

I also spent some time weeding the social sciences section. The two activities tend to go together. Hopefully, when I am done the sections I am assigned will have a much better, easier to use collection.

This morning, I spent more time reading on the train. According to the book Groundswell, it gives an estimate of $283,000 is spent by a large company for a blog, and there is a $393,000 annual return for the money spent. This is according to the Fastlane blog. I really don't know if I believe this. There are a lot of very interesting statistics in this book.

Space Vulture by Gary K. Wolf and Archbishop John J. Myers

Space Vulture by Gary K. Wolf and Archbishop John J. Myers

Space Vulture is a classic story modeled after the old science fiction pulps. The story could have jumped right out of Amazing Stories or Planet Stories. The book is meant to evoke Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers. However, for me it comes closer to Basil Wolverton's Spacehawk. It is full of daring do and desperate escapes. The authors, Gary K. Wolf and Archbishop John J. Myers were childhood friends and used to share the old pulp magazines with each other.

Captain Corsair, a law man is on a routine mission to catch a two bit thief, Gil, who is attempting to steal mushrooms that have no calories from a colony world. The mushrooms are worth their weight in gold. Gil has to pay his debts from his bookie who has taken his arm and eye and replaced them with an insect arm and a robotic eye. (There is a lot of this kind of wonderful silliness in this book.)

While Captain Corsair is capturing Gil, Space Vulture sweeps down with his slave chipped crew destroys Corsairs ship and rounds up the colonists to sell as slaves. Captain Corsair is locked up with the other prisoners. Cali, the beautiful blond lady leader of the colony falls in love with Corsair and secretly slips him a small jeweled knife from Space Vultures treasure room. Oh the villainy, you can feel it in every pore.

From there it gets better and even sillier. Will Gil get his human arm and eye back from his bookie. Will Captain Corsair escape from the clutches of Space Vulture's evil minion, #1, the lizardo warrior. Will the colonists get saved from slavery? Of course they will in grand fashion.

See every trick in the book of classic space opera. Watch the evil Space Vulture sleep in his rejuvenation coffin, see Captain Corsair gun down the evil minions of Space Vulture. Daring do, wonderful escapes. Listen to the self-righteous, narcissistic hubris of the greatest pirate of them all, Space Vulture.

From the mind of Gary K. Wolf creator of Roger Rabbit, and the heart of Archbishop John J. Myers we get classic space opera with a dose of morality. Space Vulture dies, experiences a bit of hell then gets rejuvenated in his mad scientist coffin. Throw in some carnival tricks by Captain Corsair and you can even get a recommendation from Stan Lee.

Quoting Stan Lee, "What a time machine! Space Vulture takes me back Alex Raymond's classic Flash Gordon comic strips and to all the other great science fiction adventures that thrilled me as a kid. The book is full of color, action, and fun. Gary Wolf and John Myers have brilliantly managed the neat trick of not only evoking a beloved genre, but actually surpassing it."

You can't have said it better. If you want to read some fun, nostalgic, silly, adventurous pulp space opera, this title is for you.

Good Morning, De.licio.us Bookmarks, Hellboy

Gargoyle at the British Natural History Museum

Good Morning

I am making a slight change. I am letting Entrecard go right now. I have decided to try Delicious a bookmarking site instead. I went through Bookcalendar to see what interesting links I had and created a bookmarking page for Bookcalendar. I am going to put the link where Entrecard was. http://delicious.com/BookCalendar . I also feel that the word bookmarks sounds more bookish although it doesn't exactly have to do with books.

I took some times to import some bookmarks to delicious.com from my favorites. I also went into my personal web directory on http://www.backflip.com/ and added a few more websites from there. I keep track of a lot of the sites I visit in a personal web directory.

I took a little bit of time to watch Hellboy Animated Sword of Storms. For a long time the title Hellboy bothered me. I kept on thinking this is a biblical demon and it is probably horrible and full of evil twisted demonic creatures which will warp people. Now, that I have seen the short animation, I realize Hellboy is not a demon in the biblical or occult sense.

He is an ogre or demon that might appear in a fairytale. Sword of Storms is about Hellboy fighting Japanese fairytale demons; the demon of thunder and the demon of lightning. There is absolutely no pretense at realism which makes the story much more acceptable to me to watch.
He is the good guy because he is fighting monsters that would appear in legends or fairytales. The thing that lived in the lake, the dragon that stole the maiden.

Also the character has no pretense of religion or deep philosophy. He acts like a blue collar plumber with a juvenile mind. The way he talks reminds me of the way one of the characters from Doc Savage might talk from the older pulps. This really surprised me at first. The style of the drawing is very similar to animation.

There is occultism involved, but it is the occultism of the stories of the wild hunt, the berserker, the troll under the bridge, or the trickster fox. Things that would mixed in with fairytales for children and quasi-historical events like the court of King Arthur.

It is good to know that this is not a really dark story talking about biblical demons like Spawn which I could not stand. Spawn bothered me.

A lot of teenagers ask for Hellboy and I was wondering what it was about. There are two movies on Hellboy. The title quite frankly bothered me,