Musing

Our Dream Come True or We're All Gonna Die Straight out of the Holy Fucking Hell Department (thanks to Heaton) comes this amazing tale of the realization of our high school lunchtable's dream - making salt water burn . While it doesn't look like this means the end of the world, I think it's pretty awesome that our long-standing joke actually became a reality. As many people have said in the comment area for all of the You Tube videos of the topic, it's probably a little too early to say whether this actually stands a chance of being a feasible alternative to our current fuel sources. I would imagine that the energy required to produce (and maintain) radio waves of the proper frequency would be greater than the thermal energy produced in the reaction, although one story indicated that the discoverer and some other team mates are looking for ways to make the process more efficient. Salt water for fuel - sure as hell beats $4/gal for gasoline. It also means we shoul...

The Purpose of Art or Episode III: Revenge of the Cubist It sounds strange to say, but I love the power of Picasso's Guernica . In searching for a high-res shot of it for my desktop today, I came across this quote. Ol' Pablo scored a couple of cool points for this one. "What do you think an artist is? An imbecile who has only eyes if he is a painter, or ears if he is a musician, or a lyre in every chamber of his heart if he is a poet, or even, if he is a boxer, just his muscles? Far, far from it: at the same time, he is also a political being, constantly aware of the heartbreaking, passionate, or delightful things that happen in the world, shaping himself completely in their image. How could it be possible to feel no interest in other people, and with a cool indifference to detach yourself from the very life which they bring to you so abundantly? No, painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war." --Pablo Picasso For reasons that I...