tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79562875787484764812024-03-05T01:30:59.834-08:00Broken RocketsA blog of short stories and serialized fiction. MrHobbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00527017473004483523noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956287578748476481.post-21865470684982383782014-06-14T14:00:00.002-07:002014-06-14T14:00:54.767-07:00An American quirk. There is a turn of phrase that appears in American dialogue on climate change. "Tipping Point". It occurs most in the publications which are just coming to terms with the reality of climate change but are not yet ready to accept the full ramifications of it. It masks a denialism, accepting the cause but not the effects. <div>
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The phrase is nearly always used in the context of, we're OK as long as our carbon burning slows down before we hit X tipping point. The tipping point is seldom defined, and without a doubt shifted since editorials have started employing that term. It exists in the writers' assumptions that said tipping point is a discrete moment in time, a discrete carbon dioxide concentration. A situation before which things are alright after which things have hit the fan. To give your society permission not to change because an undefined milestone on the road to chaos has not been reached yet is immoral. </div>
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Yet that is what is done. Those authors declare we are on the brink, standing on a cliffs edge, but as long as we have one foot on solid ground we can walk back to safety. NO. The effects of climate change are already here, they are heterogeneous and long term. For the low lands the tipping point for sea level rise has been crossed, in a thousand years, Holland, Florida, and Bangladesh will be footnotes. So I don't know what you define as a meaningful tipping point. </div>
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The irony is, that in the book Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell dissects various things that from a distance appeared to be tipping points. The truth that came out that it was an appearance not the reality. The reality was the phenomenon had been around, and documented for some time, by the time it reached the tipping point in the public perception it was a massive thing. So Mr. opinion writer, how many Australia's do we have to light on fire, and how many Maldives* worth of people do we have to displace before you declare a tipping point crossed. </div>
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So to those who advocate delaying action till we cross some hypothetical tipping point you shall be cursed as follows. </div>
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May your descendants live in poverty on a flood plain. <br /><br />*Maldive. the author's informal unit of sea level rise drive population displacement. When the lowest lying island is abandoned permanently due to rising oceans, that displaced population constitutes one Maldive. It had the unfortunate problem that the unit will increase over time. As the oceans continue to rise larger areas will be ill suited for habitation and more people will move. <br />End Rant</div>
MrHobbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00527017473004483523noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956287578748476481.post-86497144248445289052014-05-16T12:23:00.003-07:002014-05-16T12:23:44.116-07:00Cross talk.There has been a lot of media coverage, and facebook posts on a range of overlapping topics in the last few weeks. The headlines include, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Site_C_dam">Site C dam</a>, Fracking in BC, and the continued protests against both the Kinder morgan and Enbridge pipelines headed for this coast. News coverage talks of the benefits and the risks, compartmentalizing the risks, and exaggerating the benefits of jobs and energy. The proposals come from suits in boardrooms and the protests come from folks on the ground. <br />
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Consider the push for fracking in BC for the purpose of selling <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquefied_natural_gas">liquefied methane</a> to overseas markets. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing">Hydraulic fracturing</a> 'Fracking' is from a purely technical and scientific view pretty cool. You are doing geology, you are breaking up rock to concentrating a resource because natural forces did not do it on their own. The problem is you are doing geology, or rather creating geologic processes.<br />
Not the classic walking around sampling things with a hammer, but forcefully changing the rock strata.<br />
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It is reasonable to be skeptical of the claims made in the name of that industry. The proposition amounts to piloting a remote controlled underground jackhammer into a strata you hope is where your survey said it is and that it is as consistent as well. The author has experience associated with boring holes in the ground for the shareholders, gold, and sometimes science. The author will concede that core sampling is a different beast from tricone bits and direction drilling, and other high budget tools oil and gas enjoy, he believes a few things will often hold true. Delays will happen, the hole will drift off the mark, the geology will not match the model, and equipment will break and malfunction. Remember any drilling operation is about trying to shove a rotating steel tube into solid rock. <br />
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The author's skepticism of hydroelectric proposals is far deeper rooted as his home town has directly benefited from progress, in the form of; lost agricultural land, a waterfront that changes size with the seasons, reduced fish populations, and displaced people. The author also acknowledges that hydroelectric has an excellent <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_returned_on_energy_invested">energy return on investment,</a> he questions the value in placing the investment in monolithic mega projects that may lack the adaptability to retain their value in a changing climate. <br />
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On the pipeline subject there is so much being said against them that it hardly bares repeating. The propaganda from the industry has all honesty of a Craigslist ad for models, its totally not a porn shoot I promise. The same propagandists are sure to exclude any real description of what the project really entails. Glossing over the risks of pumping a thick chemical cocktail from the largest industrial project on the planet through a nearly pristine wilderness to a treturous coast occupied by many interesting and or cute marine animals.<br />
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In the context of the pipeline projects risk compartmentalization, is the name of the game. To ask people if they welcome digging up a nation sized patch of central Alberta, pressure cooking it with enough fresh water to irrigate a large thing, then pump it across mountains, ship it, and ultimately burn it, they might question. What is sold instead is jobs. Jobs for a boom time that will pass, because if there is one certainty in natural resources the booms end. Before too long the jobs will have run out but the mess will remain, in the air, on the ground, and in the waters, but for a short while longer we had some energy.<br />
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Jobs and energy, two things that get endless press, usually in the form of their not being enough of either. We are currently trapped with the 20th century idea that energy is it is something you pump out of the ground and burn. For a few brief generations this was needed to pull us out of the energy starved eras gone by. A legacy is now idea of energy has been conflated with burning stuff. So in the name of energy we spend obscene resources to collect molecules we will burn once. A perpetual energy crisis that exists because every oxidized carbon chain needs to be replaced again and again. The jobs plans appear be sending people scrambling the next molecule to burn. <br />
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A way from the offices where the job plans are hatched, and oil fields are mapped, the public is also wondering about jobs and energy. There is doubt that the continuing to dig for things to burn, is worth it. They are not against jobs or energy, like the author they seek a stable supply of both, at a sane cost. A protest against a pipeline to the west coast is not just a rally to defend the shore from an oil spill but also a default condemnation the tarsands that will supply the pipeline. The act of saying no is an ack of asking for something else. We can do better than scraping single use molecules from the rotting remains of a seafloor. <br />
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There are a lot of unanswered question, when it comes to jobs and energy, but what is needed is a break from the historical default assumptions. For both those planning the projects in the boardrooms and those challenging them on the boardwalks we ask, challenge each others assumptions. We may use the words, work, energy, labour, and resources, but are we defining things the same way. <br />
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The author believes that the current mess we are creating will start to consume more of the available labour, and spending unneeded manhours on collecting molecules to burn is a waste of time when Richmond is flooding. The author also does not believe MORE, is a good thing and wishes to spend more time alive live in the sun. Or in his case moderately overcast on a not too cool day. And on the subject of living with enough read the essay, <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/01/alive-in-the-sunshine/">Alive in the Sunshine</a>. <br />
<br />MrHobbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00527017473004483523noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956287578748476481.post-43335202486397165632014-03-08T14:56:00.003-08:002014-03-08T14:59:38.281-08:00Notes from a forgotten Revolution. <span style="font-family: inherit;">There is a book under a bookcase by the South facing window of my parents living room. It is massive, cloth bound with gold embossing, a coffee table book bigger than some coffee tables. It is a National Geographic Atlas of the world perhaps from the late 1970's or early 1980's. Its geopolitics reflect that with, the USSR menaces asia, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia remaining intact, and Germany existing in plural. Countless other details no longer reflect the world, street maps, demographics, and other details of the human world have vanished brushed aside by a lifetime of progress. It was never the fleeting details of human civilization that captured the attention. No it was always the image of world laid bare that drew in the imagination. </span><br />
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<tr><td><a href="http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/06/08/images/HeezenTharp_900.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" src="http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/06/08/images/HeezenTharp_900.jpg" height="364" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">1977, Thrap</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Was this the map in the atlas, I am not sure, but it is close enough as to not matter.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The above map, was either on the inside of the cover or near the front is a two page spread. It begs explanation. What forces shaped this unimaginable world of of an endless mountain ranges, chasms deeper than the tallest mountains and so many other details. Despite its incredible richness and detail, a work of art that has hung on many study and class room walls, it never crossed my mind to learn its story. Thankfully a well placed display stand at a library brought that story to me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The book, <a href="http://halifelt.com/soundings-book/#.UxEY0_ldV8E">Soundings. The story of the remarkable woman who mapped the ocean floor</a>, as it turned out is the story of map's maker, and a reminder of a forgotten revolution in science and its forgotten revolutionaries. One such revolutionary could have been found hunched over a drafting table on bank of the Hudson river. <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/06/08/tharp.html">Marie Tharp</a>, geologist, computer, and cartographer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tharp is one of too many women in science whose names were dropped or under represented, and she keeps some good company, along them <a href="http://www.sdsc.edu/ScienceWomen/cannon.html">Annie Jump Cannon</a>, <a href="http://www.bigear.org/vol1no1/burnell.htm">Jocelyn Bell Burnell</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Herschel">Caroline Herschel</a>, and countless others who were hired on to compute and never got recognized for their work. This could be the story of opportunities lost, and sexism in the 20th century, but it is really the story of being at the right place at right time with the right tools. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Marie Tharp took a masters in geology during WW2, while the boys were busy killing other boys. Spent a few years plotting drill holes for an oil company before taking a job in New York that would ultimately let her do real science. We may never know what science she would have done had she the freedom to plan her own research, but data she rendered helped fuel and resolve one of the great scientific questions of the 20th century. What forces control the shape of the face of world. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> A few sciences are blessed with grand unifying theories. Theories that tie together facts that would otherwise be a bewildering mess, explaining what is known and predicting what should be found. Darwin did it for biology, Quantum physics did it for the small, General and Special relativity explain a lot of rest. Sure the physicists my complain that two scales don't play nice, but you folks can still explain most of the universe. Geology has plate tectonics, it came to the scene late, with little fanfare and perhaps a hint of embarrassment. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Scroll up to the map, you will see that it is centred on the Atlantic basin. It is from this perspective easy to imagine how South America and Africa could spoon together. One such person to make this same observation was a german meteorologist <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/wegener.html">Alfred Wegener</a>. He backed his claims up with evidence of past climates, common rocks and deposits, and fossils, and proposed that moving the land around was a good way of explaining all that. This early version of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_drift#Wegener_and_his_predecessors">Continental Drift</a> got off to a rough start, but not without good reason. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In a cartoonishly simplified version of history, Wegener is asked how the continents drift, produces a laughably incompetent answer. Later he goes to Greenland and dies doing science. Another war makes a mess of the place, but gifts the world with some new toys. Science starts to play with the new toys, some clever people write some papers. Wegener is redeemed, the world a more interesting place, and people quietly sweep their expanding earth and geosyncline theories under the rug. Helping the clever people write their papers and make sense of world the new toys was showing them was Marie Tharp. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is too easy to forget just how much data there is at our fingertips, and just how easy it is to render that data in nearly any style you wish. It is just as easy to forget just how recent a development this all is. My education and career have lead to doing a tiny amount of work in hand plotting maps and cross sections, but this work was always a sideshow to the computer or tradition. For Marie Tharp, by hand was everything. She gains my endless respect for producing figures that are at once beautiful and information rich, a challenge that remains even with the power tools we have today. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">What made Marie Tharp a great cartographer was her skills as geologist and a computer. Huge portions of her life were spent rendering by hand, the jagged lines of a sonar traces onto maps of the oceans, and filling in the gaps with educated guesses as geologists do. It in was these long draughting sessions that new clues would start emerge. The Mid Atlantic ridge emerged from the sonar pings. From sonar and Earthquake data, still more new features, emerged, a rift valley running through the ridge's center. In the first rendering of this <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_C._Heezen">Bruce Heezen</a>, disliking the implications of a rift system in an oceanic mountain range ordered it redone. It was, the feature persisted. </span><br />
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<a href="http://speccoll.library.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/styles/ual-large-16-9/public/mtharp_85f978189a_z.jpg?itok=lLGUIib4" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://speccoll.library.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/styles/ual-large-16-9/public/mtharp_85f978189a_z.jpg?itok=lLGUIib4" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The data would trickle in and the renderings would trickle out. Years of tedious drafting would map a system of mountains 40,000 miles long snaking through the worlds oceans. Fracture zones and offsets were recorded and rendered with care. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">These visualizations of the world's ocean basins would be consulted, debated, rejected, and reaffirmed but scientists across the world. The need to explain the interconnectedness of world brings us back to continental drift.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the style of their subject matter geologists built up a case over a long slow span of time. And in 1968, fairly brief paper stitched together decades of observations, and made geology a much more grown up science, able to explain the world's largest features in a unified framework. <a href="https://www.u-cursos.cl/ingenieria/2008/2/GF41D/1/material_docente/objeto/192544">Rises trenches, great faults and crustal blocks<u>.pfd</u> </a> Or more properly...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="author" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Morgan, W. J.</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.5px;"> (</span><span class="pubYear" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">1968</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.5px;">), </span><span class="articleTitle" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Rises, trenches, great faults, and crustal blocks</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.5px;">, </span><span class="journalTitle" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">J. Geophys. Res.</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.5px;">, </span><span class="vol" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">73</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.5px;">(</span><span class="citedIssue" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">6</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.5px;">),</span><span class="pageFirst" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">1959</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.5px;">–</span><span class="pageLast" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">1982</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.5px;">, doi:</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.5px;">10.1029/JB073i006p01959</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.5px;">.</span></span></span><br />
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Anchoring the introduction of the paper is a map of ocean floor credited to Heezen and Tharp. Indeed without the thirty odd years Tharp and Heesen spent in collaboration the world of geology would be far worse off, and science would have been much slower to grow up. <br />
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When the book got my attention because of the cover, my patchy geology knowledge told me it was part of that sciences history, a key part. This ramble was first considered as a book review, but too many things interconnected to make that an easy prospect. The end product, brushes against the history of a science and its cast of characters whom are often underrepresented in histories. Tharp among them. A few things to say about the book and the subject of the book are now in order.<br />
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As a read goes it is light, informal in tone. Where it needs to explain the science that Tharp and her colleagues were working on it does so simply and with the optimum amount of detail. Sometimes I felt I was being given a narrative but did not know the character well, this is both a product of the authors voice, and Tharps private nature. Yet the details that come out do show a strong woman, who pushed her way into posts where she could do science. The last chapters, provide hints to her character one more eccentric, fierce, obsessed, which you would have to be to spend 30 years rendering the seafloors, and adventurous than 30 years of academic memos would suggest. In the end I have to say this for <a href="http://halifelt.com/">Hali Felt's</a> work, you made me wish I had had a chance to meet her. And so I think you should have the chance too. Sadly Marie died from lung cancer in 2006.<br />
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Not many people have atlases these days. Now it is all about the Googles, yet even with our masses of data new instruments that require far less human labour to visualize their work is still relevant. <a href="http://www.google.ca/earth/explore/showcase/ocean.html#tab=underwater-terrain">Under water terrain</a> from google. Some of the data is Heezen and Tharp, some is modern, and their style is all over it. It will be a long time before her work is done. The child staring at the atlas did not know it was a masterpiece that took 30 years to render. The sometimes cartographer sometime geologist typing tips his hat in respect. <br />
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Lastly, I had to laugh in reading that during the final production of a world spanning map they had troubles with the labeling. Yes labeling a map is a pain, and damn it I am glad I was not doing it with stick on letters or hand stencels.<br />
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MrHobbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00527017473004483523noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956287578748476481.post-32886868700832256642014-02-11T09:50:00.002-08:002014-02-11T09:50:37.021-08:00You say irradiated wasteland like it is a bad thing. An idea inspired by The Onion, built up in pub full of nerds and scientists, and brought to full in the moments before sleep. <br />
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The first thought was a fake headline for the Onion. <b>Climate scientists suggest nuclear war to curb the effects of global warming.</b><br />
As bad ideas go it was epic, so for its entertainment value it landed on Facebook. And vanished as ideas do. When the notion reemerged in the pub it had matured slightly. Afterall the suggestion of actually having an nuclear war was just a bit harsh. So the improved idea was to nuke Queen Maud Land, Antarctica. Upon closer inspection this idea remained too flawed. Vaporizing huge volumes of ice was not desirable as water vapor is greenhouse gas. You needed to kick up dust not sublime ice. The resulting refinement was to blast the dry Wright valleys along the Antarctic coast, progress. <br />
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The problems with the plan were instantly obvious. The first being the dust would settle quickly and the cooling effect would be lost with it. Since you avoided killing large chunks of humanity with atomic fireballs the economy would have hobbled along continuing to burning stuff. This burning stuff habit drives the current warming problems. To make matters worse the productive Southern ocean is flooded with radioactive fallout. It became apparent that this was being approached from the wrong angle. The time scales were too mismatched, a longer view was needed. <br />
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For global warming, the time scale is tens of thousands of years, between when burning stuff for everything stops, and the climate reaches equilibrium. Coincidentally a time scale similar to one of our other self made problems, nuclear waste. Now we talk serious long term planning.<br />
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At that moment it became clear, we are treating the nuclear waste problem all wrong. The current method, is akin to hoarding, keep it in secure locations with until it has cooled down to near background levels. Implicit in this is desire to irradiate the smallest portion of the world possible. This is where the conventional thinking goes wrong. The problem is being looked at in isolation. To follow this train of thought to its inevitable derailment it is worth considering the Pripyat Accidental Nature Reserve. Better known as the <span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 22.071998596191406px;">Chernobyl exclusion zone.</span><br />
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The Exclusion zone thanks to being largely devoid of human activity is doing quite well despite its contaminants. This is where are two waste driven problems converge, climate change and nuclear waste. Unlike previous iterations of this proposal the desire is not to mask the symptoms caused by our burning stuff habit, but to create and enforce isolation zones. Spaces where climate change can be adapted to without humans adding their busy work to the mess. This is where it gets tricky, and several practical and a few ethical problems need to be sorted out. The practical problems will be addressed.<br />
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The goal of the program is not to create a lifeless wasteland, but a radiation hazard enough to scare off people and exploit the existing radiophobia. With the end product being a resilient nature preserve able to weather current and future climate changes. Two factors come forward in is exercise, site selection and waste distribution. <br />
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An ideal site would be a basin that plays host to a key biome. The ideal basins would have expansive mid to high elevation regions to accommodate the migration to high elevations due to warming in the lowlands. Where possible the basin's drainage should discharge directly into the ocean. This will allow the creation of a marine park in the buffer zone. Where direct to ocean discharge is not possible the selection a tributary to a much larger river would be required to allow for quick dilution to back ground, again enabling a buffer zone. Closed basins are undesirable, as they would only drive up the waste concentrations resulting in a unwanted dead zone. In addition to a broad elevation range, several of the sites should be oriented along a north south axis to accommodate the migration to higher latitudes.<br />
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Waste distribution is a tricky thing. Firstly, reprocess the fuel. There is no value in dumping fissile elements that could still provide us with energy into the environment. After reprocessing comes packaging. The goal being a time release system. The waste storage bundle should be leaky enough to keep a steady flow of isotopes into the environment without instant toxicity. The storage bundle must be robust. The large areas involved will require distribution by way of airdrops. A secondary consideration, but of scientific value would be to tailor the waste mix to be unique for each basin. This would aide in animal migration studies among other things.<br />
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A few other things should be considered. At least a few of the select basins should be productive and large enough to act as carbon sinks both in todays climate and future climates. This is a long term plan, intended to remove humans for select areas of the planet for a time greater than the current span of recorded history. There are a few more trivial things to consider.<br />
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There are essentially no ideal sites that do not already have human populations. Along with the ethically dubious requirement to displace people, there would also be a certain amount of cultural manipulation required to encourage a sustained radiophobia and awareness of the hot zones. These are ultimately social issues and rather beyond the scope of this slightly evil, slightly genius plan. <br />
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It is the opinion of this blog that we would be better off breaking our burning stuff habit before we are forced to irradiate large areas of the world to force them into fallow. However our collective failures at long term planning and learning not to burn pickled sunlight and dehydrated marshes suggests we could use some tough love. After all the thing about weaning is it is something done to you. You as the weany, would be quite content to suck at the teat till it runs dry.<br />
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MrHobbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00527017473004483523noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956287578748476481.post-47288013406142195832013-10-18T13:39:00.002-07:002013-10-18T13:39:47.049-07:00That Sinking Feeling 2<br />
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The ravioli can was a hive of activity. Simple structures were glued to the tin substrate, a maze not unlike an ant's nest. Its population had more than doubled over night and with that the demands for food and material had ballooned. With these new demands, came larger foraging parties, our attention now turns to a descendent of forager. </div>
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A troop of forages were prowling the limits of their world. They traveled in a loose V formation rapid clicks carried news and warnings between the critters. The all clear ping echoed between them, as they neared the surface. They swam faster as the water cleared, fresh, and rich in oxygen it flowed past their eager gills. They swam quickly to leave the barrens. </div>
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The leader's chirp of panic brought the troop to a stop. Strange refractions was all they knew of the waves passing around them. The leader had vanished. Probing clicks pinged the waters, but no answer came. Flashing her large pincers the deputy pushed her way to the front of the pack. Tasting nothing in the fresh wastes, she lead the way, following a faint flavour. </div>
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The sent carried them to a towering concave structure. Here the waters were stagnant and carried the lingering tang from the moulds that flourished in the early days. A red fleck caught the pack leader's eyes it clung to the face of the white cliff, out of reach. The leader swam hard, flicking her paddle like third legs at full force. On the last push something gave way. The world for her changed.</div>
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Smells vanished. The world as she knew it vanished. In it's place a shimmering plain with occasional irregular and out of focus protrusions. A hum carried through the thin vapours of this odd world. The scout leader's secondary eye's caught a hint of motion. She swivelled bringing it into focus. A black iridescent body with irregular bristles was diving towards her, it was many times the size of a warrior from the ravioli can. Its spiked legs unfolded as it landed on the impossible world, leaving smooth indents. It glided towards her, a proboscis tasting the world as it moved. </div>
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Its shadow loomed, fearing the proboscis she reached for the nearest limb and grabbed on with both sets of pincers. The alien responded to the assault by taking to the air. It headed directly for White Cliff. </div>
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White Cliff towered over her as the creature buzzed towards it. It reflected the bright light coming from some unknown point, highlighting the red specks her people knew as food. In a massive feat of acrobatics it landed on the near vertical cliff face. The limb she was perched on moved. Bringing a massive maw into view. The troop leader let go. With only a fraction of a second to spare. She fell, landing with a weak splash at the base of the cliff. </div>
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She had landed well away from any of her kin, there scents weak in the fluid. Up next to the cliff she could taste many an edible thing. Her summoning clicks echoed from the face behind her, carrying news of unprecidented bounty. They came slowly, being cautious of new territory. Caution gave way to greed when the bounty was seen by all. The swim back to base was slow as the buoyant bounty fought against them. </div>
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It took three foraging parties to mine out white cliff of pasta sauce. The scouts having lead the way moved on to new lands. </div>
MrHobbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00527017473004483523noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956287578748476481.post-12765400238492962332013-10-05T22:56:00.000-07:002013-10-05T22:56:06.273-07:00Oh that Sinking feelingNot the tight one day one Idea that was Regrowth, but an old idea from years back that needs to air out.<br />
By the way, yes I did do the dishes before I went to Hawaii, so this is not about me.<br />
Part one. <br />
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Rob was a bachelor's bachelor of the worst sort. House keeping escaped him. Tonight he was trying to capture it, by force if necessary. A trip to Hawaii was booked and he was leaving in the morning. Not coming home to a city of slime moulds forced him to tidy the place. He worked over the mental checklist, laundry, travel documents and ticket on the table check. Satisfied with his preparedness he called it a night, cracked open a beer and turn on the TV and forgot about the dishes. </div>
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Rob made his flight, he even remembered to rinse out the empty beer bottle from the night before, he was pleased with himself. The dregs of the beer landed in a half filled kitchen sink. Rob drank many a beer in Hawaii and generally got too much sun. </div>
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Mean while in apartment 308. A series of events played out the lights of which have not been seen in hundreds of millions of years. Somethings was stirring in the kitchen. Perhaps it was a cosmic ray or a solar flare, it almost certainly had something to do with the stale beer. For three days not much happened. Then every thing changed. </div>
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Day four of in the sink:</div>
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The mould had subsided. Some hardy blooms clung to the edge of the world but the centre was free. A creature smaller than a rice grain and vaguely shrimp shaped circled the edge of mould feeling along the edges for fragments of food, and tasting the water for the tell tail tang of poison spores. An irregular shadow drifted over head. Following a base instinct it swam towards it. The forager could taste the rich calorie dense goodness. The creature reached for the treasure with a three pronged pincer. Tugging, flanges flapping in the water, the creature could not move the morsel it was trapped by surface tension. It did not give up, its struggle sent signal molecules through the soapy world. Deep below, near the cereal spoon left of the beer bottle and under the ravioli can help was summoned. </div>
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Help arrived, pulsing backwards on powerful multi-jointed limbs. The chemical markers of the scout lead the heavies to the nugget. Their thick claws bit into the nugget with more power than the scout could imagine, and the massive paddles that were the third legs smoothly dragged the treasure down to the depth of the Ravioli can. A small victory at apartment 308. </div>
MrHobbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00527017473004483523noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956287578748476481.post-8764814599337602282013-06-06T10:47:00.000-07:002013-06-06T10:47:34.192-07:00Coming soon.Next week's short<div>
The Jupiter Gardens Incident. </div>
MrHobbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00527017473004483523noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956287578748476481.post-20313866003436016742013-06-03T13:48:00.000-07:002013-06-09T07:23:02.807-07:00Regrowth. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYgooxJF4_82wXZUFNYKLQQf0WJCgIfR-5_2uO0EOOW1vkF7BQbmtJAkQRTJv3diL8AX1cjcTPePsqkRayDR6Q5zQCTXOkWll6STo1VA4ri7W68pPfTqxwiC3IdR6scQvLn-kqvwWXXEmW/s1600/central-nervous-system.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYgooxJF4_82wXZUFNYKLQQf0WJCgIfR-5_2uO0EOOW1vkF7BQbmtJAkQRTJv3diL8AX1cjcTPePsqkRayDR6Q5zQCTXOkWll6STo1VA4ri7W68pPfTqxwiC3IdR6scQvLn-kqvwWXXEmW/s200/central-nervous-system.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
My name is Dr. Howard Wheeler. I was a neurosurgeon, a scientist, a teacher, father and cancer patient. If you were to look me up you would find me in medical journals, newspapers, my doctors were on late night TV and daytime talk shows, I was the medical marvel of the age. It was hell.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYgooxJF4_82wXZUFNYKLQQf0WJCgIfR-5_2uO0EOOW1vkF7BQbmtJAkQRTJv3diL8AX1cjcTPePsqkRayDR6Q5zQCTXOkWll6STo1VA4ri7W68pPfTqxwiC3IdR6scQvLn-kqvwWXXEmW/s1600/central-nervous-system.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
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Two years ago I was diagnosed with cancer, it metastasized far faster than anyone one expected. It hit stage four, it was inoperable and death was certain. I could not passively wait for death. It was in these disoriented weeks that a brash young college approached me. He was known form an anatomy lecture I gave 10 years back, since then his team had made massive progress in tissue printing.<br />
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We knew the cancer had spread to nearly every corner of my body. But through the best MRI, and PET scans it appeared to have not yet found its way into my central nervous system. This then became the foundation for Tyson Ingersoll team's strategy.</div>
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The proposal was simple in principle but insane in practice. Remove everything cancerous and replace it with clean pure new tissue. When I signed the consent form I could not imagine greater pain and suffering than what was wrecking my body, so I signed. Consenting the use of three experimental technologies on my dying body.</div>
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At first I was weighed and measured in every way imaginable my bone volume measured to fractions of millimeters, my circulatory system measured with the same precision. With every last detail of me mapped I went into the operating room. </div>
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This was anticipated and dreaded. The cancer was inoperable but the procedure would move quicker without excess tissue. I dreaded this because it was the most ordinary part of the process, it was within the realm of the imaginable. I went into the operating theatre a man whose most severe trauma had been a sprained ankle, I left the operating room lacking ankles and much more. </div>
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I was never supposed to wake up after I went under the knife, not until the procedure was nearly done. With so many unknowns that plan failed. </div>
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First awakening.</div>
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I came to on a gurney. Covered in sterile bandages I could not see the full extent of the pruning. I could not move. From my limited vantage point hoses and piping was leading from my chest cavity to a massive bank of machines. </div>
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There was no feeling in my body and my arms and legs had been amputated as planned. Panic struck me, I had no pulse and was not breathing. I tried a deep breathing exercise to calm me but when my chest failed to move in response the panic only deepened. </div>
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A calm came over me. In the last moments before I lost consciousness I overheard someone. </div>
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"I got some spikes on the EEG, so I upped the dosage."<br />
"Good, lets not waste any time getting him into the Digestion Vat." With that I was out for an unknown time. </div>
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The Digestion vat was the first of the experimental technologies. Technically it was this part of the process that fully cured me of cancer. A special doping agent had been applied to my central nervous system to protect it from the tailored enzymes I would be bathed in for weeks while they decomposed my non cerebro-spinal tissues. The high glucose high oxygen environment kept my brain alive. </div>
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Second Awakening.</div>
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Blackness, an absence of any sensation. The sensation that eons had passed dominated my thoughts. Memories, of my family, my kids, and wife did nothing. I endlessly came back to the feelings of blackness. The boundary was gone, no longer could I tell if I was feeling nothing because I had nothing to feel it with or that there was no universe to feel any more. </div>
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The memory of the knowledge of the procedure failed to provide any solace. Knowing I was in a tank devoid of flesh and blood was too abstract. Heart stopping pain ended the lucid moment. </div>
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Third Awakening. </div>
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Again in the blackness. Again the feeling mountain ranges had risen and fallen since I last thought. There is pain now. The pain has texture now. An agony of phantom limbs, jellyfish stings and the aches of the worst fever you could ever imagine. To scream in agony or to curl into a whimpering ball were beyond my reach. Buried in this agony was an uncertain feeling that I was discreet from the universe. Inexplicably bliss came over me and reality was lost. </div>
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Much later when I was at last able to review the data collected during the procedure I was able to correlate some neurological activity with stages of the process I reasoned that this awaking had occurred during the period of peripheral integration. As the grown tissues and bones were printed onto my brain and spinal column, nerves growing in the new tissues connected with their chemically marked counterparts the first signal they sent was pain. </div>
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Fourth Awakening.</div>
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A delirium. The heat, the chills. It was so hot. It felt like less time had passed and that it was a human time scale. My bones ached. I had bones. I had skin. I could not move. In the black uniform environment I was locked in the boundary of self remained uncertain. My awareness grew to include knowledge of no pulse no breathing. The panic attack and the flashback to the first moments after the surgery sent me over the edge and conscience was lost.</div>
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Records of the procedure showed that the tanks temperature was elevated both because and to ensure the acceleration of tissue growth to speed up the process. </div>
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Fifth Awakening. </div>
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A crushing weight of ten thousand needles presses down on me. Down and up have meaning again. I test my eyes, an infernal whiteness has replaced the calming blackness I have spent eternity with. I scream, or I thought I screamed. I did not stop until there was blackness again.</div>
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I learned later that my panic attack during my first official awaking drove me to cardiac arrest and they were forced to grow a new heart for me. The recording of the recovery room showed me trying throw the bedding off of me. </div>
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Sixth Awakening. </div>
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My head is clear, I have no sensation of my body. There is a faint light in the room. I am clearly in a room. Over a period of time that could have been hours, or days, but definitely not years or centuries sensation returns to my body. </div>
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A voice addressed me. "Mr Wheeler, good morning. Waking more gently I see. I will need to run some tests on you, but soon we will have you back in your old life."</div>
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I had a new body. It was soft and pink hairless. The same weight and size I had been before the cancer wasted me away. It had been carefully grown from cloned cells and cleaned of the mutation that produced the cancer. </div>
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Recovery was slow. After 10 months without sensory input the very world was traumatic, too much noise light and texture to take in. My wife came by soon after the Dr. ran his tests. I could remember our love and our life together but only had the faint recollection of the feeling. When she held my hand I recoiled from the alien stimulus. When she looked into my eyes I knew she had seen the blackness keeping me company. It would be a long time before we spoke again.</div>
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I don't sleep any more, only cat naps when the strain gets to great. The blackness is always waiting. </div>
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It took years to relearn how to live in a body. In truth it always takes years for the brain and the body get used to each other, normally this is called infancy and the child benefits from a lack of any reference points. </div>
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Now I write this account. In the hopes of saving the vain from from themselves. They say I am a miracle and this will pave the path to immortality, but they don't know how to stop the pain or the blackness. </div>
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My name was Dr. Howard Wheeler. I was a neurosurgeon, a scientist, a teacher, father,cancer survivor, and Regrowth's first victim.</div>
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Alexander van Houten.</div>
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June 3 2013</div>
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MrHobbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00527017473004483523noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956287578748476481.post-11123264632078330712013-05-31T23:51:00.000-07:002013-05-31T23:51:01.147-07:00The Pan.A proposal for a wok or saute pan suitable for use in zero gravity. <div>
As a person who finds the preparation of food as important as the consumption of food I find the current state of reheated and or rehydrated astronaut food depressing. When the on orbit population regularly exceeds 6 people there will be a greater demand for basic kitchen tools. </div>
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By way of a kitchen, a compartment similar to a glove box in size could be installed. A combination of either sticky strips or a fine mesh with suction could be employed to secure the food and keep it from drifting into the cabin. A food processor or an modified slap chop would out perform a kitchen knife for preparation. </div>
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The pan, would be heated with induction as that is safe and efficient. The pan bottom would have two layers. The outer layer would be solid and contain the induction hardware. A vacuum line would connect to the outer pan, this would provide suction. The vacuum line would have a collector and a filter to extract any food or juices that enter it. </div>
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The inner pan would be a dense stainless steel mesh smooth, similar to an air hockey table. The intent is to allow the low pressure between the pans to allow the food to cling to the surface of the inner pan. This design would be strongly sensitive to the volume of food in it. Overfill the pan and the extra food does not receive adequate suction and will drift around the pan. </div>
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Two potential solutions exist for that problem. The simple solution, since the pan will need a lid a moderately power fan can be installed in the lid ensuring a down force. </div>
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Complementary to this is the larger format wok. Here again suction is applied between the inner and outer pans, but the inner pan is induced to spin. The centripetal force from the spinning inner pan works with the suction to allow a larger volume of food to be cooked at once. </div>
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Depending on the complexity of the kitchen and the mechanics of the cookware there might be value on isolating the station from kitchen related vibrations. </div>
MrHobbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00527017473004483523noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7956287578748476481.post-71302180617015960192010-11-08T23:16:00.001-08:002013-05-22T09:52:54.824-07:00Introducing: Broken Rockets. A new project<br />
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The project represents a showcase for short fiction and serialized fiction. I have always had ideas for science fiction works of various scale, many of the core ideas I have been lugging around for ten years or more. As I discuss in my other blog <a href="http://nothernlites.blogspot.ca/2013/05/from-here.html">Northern Lites</a> writing has become a priority for me, because of that decision I have taken down the old posts here until they revised. <br />
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Stay tuned. The wait will be well worth it.<br />
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MrHobbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00527017473004483523noreply@blogger.com2