The Fry Side

This voiceover is fabulous!

(Found via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.)

Here is a grand idea from Professor Bainbridge about how to get nuclear power going again in the US.

The Navy already operates dozens of small nuclear reactors in aircraft carriers and submarines, with an outstanding record of safety and reliability. They have an established training program that churns out nuclear-capable officers.

By analogy to the Army Corps of Engineering, we could create a Navy Corps of Nuclear Engineering. It would build and operate dozens of small nuclear power plants around the country.

To address security concerns, the first plants would be built on military bases, where the garrison can provide security. Licensing costs would be cut because the government would own and operate the plants.

The proposal should not offend small government sensibilities. Nuclear power is rife with market failures (and government failures). Huge research and development costs associated with traditional large scale nuclear power plants may be beyond the ability of private firms to finance. In addition, we know that private firms tend to underproduce the sort of basic R&D necessary to develop new generations of power plants. But the Navy already spends money to develop new naval reactors, which presumably could be scaled up at reasonable costs. Since the Navy need not worry about earning market competitive rates of return on its investment in R&D, moreover, there’s no economic disincentive to conducting that sort of R&D in the Navy.

(Found via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.)

I thought this was great. Small power plants at military sites means the technology gets used, they don’t use fossil fuels, our defense not only stays off the grid but can now offset some costs by selling leftover power to the grid.

Now all we have to do is upgrade the damn grid.

The novel illumination geometry that accompanies equinox lowers the sun’s angle to the ring plane, significantly darkens the rings, and causes out-of-plane structures to look anomalously bright and to cast shadows across the rings. These scenes are possible only during the few months before and after Saturn’s equinox which occurs only once in about 15 Earth years. Also at equinox, the shadows of the planet’s expansive rings are compressed into a single, narrow band cast onto the planet as seen in this mosaic.

I have been following an RSS feed for NASA’s Image Of The Day (link to feed in right column) for a while now. I don’t have as much interest in the stuff dealing with the shuttle or general equipment. But frequently, there are stunning pictures from our probes and telescopes of the objects in our heavens.

The picture above is my desktop picture. I like the humbling reminders of my insignificance in the universe, as well as the reminder that there is a greater universe beyond my own life. Perspective is a healthy thing to regularly inject in one’s existence.

From the annals of Science comes another No Shit, Sherlock.

Educators, and definitely my dad, can appreciate this. Just take an 18 minute break and watch, please.

Maybe I should try this to stop waking up so tired. I have been eating food a little too late.

Simply stop eating during the 12-16 hour period before you want to be awake. Once you start eating again, your internal clock will be reset as though it is the start of a new day. Your body will consider the time you break your fast as your new “morning.”

For example, if you want to start waking up at 2:00 am, you should start fasting between 10:00 am or 2:00 pm the previous day, and don’t break your fast until you wake up at 2:00 am. Make sure you eat a nice healthy meal to jumpstart your system.

Another example: If you are travelling from Los Angeles to Tokyo, figure out when breakfast is served in Tokyo, and don’t eat for the 12-16 hours before Tokyo’s breakfast time.

(Found via Zen Habits.)

Here is why mental_floss is great:

As long as we eat, flatulence is going to be a fact of life. Gas is a by-product of the digestion process and we normally produce a half a liter of it everyday in the form of 14-20 farts.

The source of that gas is the bacteria that live in the lower intestinal tract. Any food that doesn’t get broken down in the stomach or the small intestine winds up in the large intestine in an undigested state, where it’s met by colonies of bacteria that break it down and convert it into nutrients. While the bacteria go about their business, they produce various gasses as by-products, including methane, hydrogen and hydrogen sulfide (this last one is the cause of the stench). All these gases then descend to the rectum where they’re released with the trumpeting fanfare of the vibrating anal sphincter. [emphasis mine]

I wonder if they’re hiring.

Happy Vernal Equinox, everyone! As always, I’m please to celebrate a legitimate astronomical event because, well, it actually happens. Plus, up here in Minnesota, the first day of Spring is most definitely a cause for celebration, even if there is still snow on the ground and a storm is sure to dump more sometime in April.

Here are some fun tidbits about the Equinox. Gotta dig any holiday or event that includes history, math, and astronomy, right?

The length of day and night may not be equal on the vernal equinox, but that doesn’t make the first day of spring any less special.

The fall and spring equinoxes, for starters, are the only two times during the year when the sun rises due east and sets due west, according to Alan MacRobert, a senior editor with Sky & Telescope magazine.

The equinoxes are also the only days of the year when a person standing on the Equator can see the sun passing directly overhead.

On the Northern Hemisphere’s vernal equinox day, a person at the North Pole would see the sun skimming across the horizon, beginning six months of uninterrupted daylight.

A person at the South Pole would also see the sun skim the horizon, but it would signal the start of six months of darkness.

(Found via mental_floss Blog.)

How cool is this?

Really cool. Almost as cool as it is in Minnesota right now.

And no, they didn’t cancel school, even though it’s twenty below without the wind chill.

Two Years Ago, I wrote this:

I have gone through my entire house and cut the electrical cost of lighting my home by seventy-five percent. While there may have been a bit of initial investment in these small, spiraling compact fluorescent bulbs, they will last me for years and each one uses less than one quarter of the energy of the equivalent light output from an incandescent bulb. Believe it or not, the initial investment wasn’t much at all. If bought in some bulk, they come out to around two dollars a bulb for the basic wattages that one would expect. Take into account that they last over five times longer and use one-fourth of the energy, and you’ll find they save tons of money over the rather long haul. If you keep your eyes peeled, you can find them for even less. We went to Lowes recently and they were offering rebates making packs of four bulbs free! The cost of lighting my entire house dropped seventy-five percent, and we have barely spent a dime. Please folks, do yourselves and the rest of the world a huge favor. Make your homes more energy efficient. You’ll save tons of money, our rather old electrical grids won’t be as strained, and in the end we’ll decrease our need for so much fuel in general.

In two years, I have changed zero compact fluorescents. None at all. And there are two or three that are burning almost permanently. The only bulbs I’ve changed? The one in the garage door opener. Our garage is not heated and incandescent bulbs work better in the cold.

Well, after having changed about half a dozen bulbs in three weeks (I used the leftovers from the house) I finally caved and put a CFL in there. It still works, though is a little dim when starting up. But you know what? I’m not going to think about it anymore now. And I’m all about not thinking.

I still have no idea how much energy I’ve saved. At least my conscience is clear.

Thanks, free will. I’m always happy you’re there.