Airbrush

If the Rare Earth hypothesis is true, that would explain the Fermi Paradox. Earth would be seen by the few aliens that exist in our local, as a freak of nature, a rare jewel covered with life, an extraordinary planet with strange life for aliens to study. BUT try to not interfere! If they have been observing us for a long time, they could know the exact state of our technology. They could routinely steal cell phones from people, and other technology samples to study and figure out, and always stay one step out of our reach. They would now be well aware cell phone cameras, satellites watching Earth, and other surveillance cameras, are everywhere. Why would an advanced ET, with the ability to travel such distances, not be stealthy? They have lights on the outside of their craft, as if to attract attention. It only makes sense if the lights in the sky are a diversion while something they want you to NOT notice is happening somewhere else. Or they are so confident that they will be only recorded as a vague light in the sky, and thereby remain unidentified. If tic tacs can make dramatic maneuvers that cause thousands of g forces, any biological being would be crushed. Maybe the craft are piloted by AI, little grey indestructible crash-dummy robots.

What if when the first cars were invented, there was a collision between two cars and both gas tanks exploded and killed the people driving the cars? Was that an indicator that the internal combustion engine was unsafe and could never be useful in cars? No. Something like that may be going on with nuclear power. Just because the early nuclear reactors were not safe enough, does not mean that they will never be safe. Here are some ideas for safe nuclear reactors, thorium molten salt, and the Natrium reactor. Comments to this video: "Advantages of thorium: Much safer than uranium-no pressure vessel, no fuel rods to melt down. Much simpler reactor. Thorium salt liquid is pumped from the reactor tank through a heat exchanger and back into the tank. Thorium is much more plentiful than uranium--in fact so plentiful it is considered a waste product from rare earth mining. Thorium doesn't need expensive enriching to make it usable. Thorium is of little use for weapons. If power goes off, liquid simply drains into a pit which stops reaction. No fuel rods to cool or melt down if power fails. This technology has been around for years. Why was it not developed long ago? Politics, methinks." "I'm a retired nuclear engineer and have worked on nuclear fuel and safety aspects. In those early years in the 1980s, Thorium was not utilized in NPPs. But its potential was always recognized, and India's 3-stage strategy included Thorium utilization in stage-3. Hopefully, good progress has been made in the last 40 years and would not be surprised if Thorium bundles are loaded in the operating heavy water reactors." "...Thorium reactor, which is usually called Thorium battery, has already been used for decades in both US and USSR satellites to power satellites. It's not unknown. It's in fact well-known in aerospace field, but the knowledge of it has been closed for public by big energy engineering companies." "A good talk but he has a number of small errors. The two biggest are: --- Current nuclear reactors burn only 0.5 % of the U235, not a couple percent as he says. --- Thorium is about as common as Lead. We have enough Thorium on the planet Earth to power everyone for 100,000's of years. You can take ordinary dirt, and the trace amounts of Thorium are equal to 12 barrels of oil. Energy wise, we can burn the Thorium in ordinary dirt, and make an energy profit." "The reason we don't use Thorium for energy is because it can't be used for weapons and isn't rare enough to monopolize the market so it can be controlled by governments. It's cheap energy which means no one makes money which means those making money on energy right now which includes renewable energy are not going to support this energy source." "Recycling the nuclear waste is a must and very doable, France is currently doing just that. Nuclear waste holds 90% of energy still even after 5 years of use. Especially with electric cars becoming very popular it will put a huge strain on our current energy grid so nuclear plants will be a necessity sooner than later." I know the consensus here is probably opposed to ANY nuclear power, but renewables have bigger problems. France gets 71% of its' power from nuclear. Finland is spending billions of US dollars on a new nuclear reactor.

Yes, and even though Barr thinks Trump is "unfit for office" he thinks change is probably worse than the devil he knows.

You are correct about upscaling to blocks or communities. My hopes are that engineering a SFD intelligently could be affordable to many, if not most people of 2122. It would require excavating a deep cellar under the home for water and battery storage, and survival supplies, and it's a storm shelter. Cover the roof with solar panels, collect all water runoff in a reservoir. And in the back yard a green house. If the house is not too big, maybe living away from the grid could be affordable.

Very interesting. You have many good points here. That gets me thinking. I like the idea of low-rise structures for small communities. You can have communal green houses for raising as much food as possible. Build geodesic domes over or around buildings to support them better. Have hanging gardens. "Deep cellars" are needed for my idea for stand-alone single-family structures. Stand-alone houses would be less common, and more expensive, than low-rise apartment complexes. But if you can afford it, many would prefer the autonomy of their own stand-alone home. Deep cellars are necessary for water storage of a thousand gallons per house, banks of "super" batteries, and a storm shelter stocked with survival supplies, which may be more common in 100 years. In 100 years, I think battery technology will have improved so much that the entire roof of a stand-alone house will produce far more than enough solar power for a single family. The excess power generated can be sold. "With climate change and extreme weather events in mind, the carbon footprint of the stand-alone home and the automobile-centric infrastructure required to sustain it is hard to rationalize." Maybe.

It struck me what Attorney General Bill Barr said in interviews about his new book. Barr declared that Trump was "unfit for office." Barr investigated all of Trump's plausible fictions about "voter fraud" in the 2020 election. He found NOTHING. When asked if he would vote for Trump in 2024, Barr replied that he doesn't want Trump to be the GOP nomination. He will vote for someone else in the GOP primary. But if Trump wins the primary, Barr will vote for Trump. He said that Trump is preferrable over the "progressive agenda." What exactly does he mean? Here is what Wikipedia says about Progressivism: "Progressivism is a political philosophy in support of social reform.[1] Based on the idea of progress in which advancements in science, technology, economic development and social organization are vital to the improvement of the human condition, progressivism became highly significant during the Age of Enlightenment in Europe, out of the belief that Europe was demonstrating that societies could progress in civility from uncivilized conditions to civilization through strengthening the basis of empirical knowledge as the foundation of society.[2] Figures of the Enlightenment believed that progress had universal application to all societies and that these ideas would spread around the world from Europe." Progressivism - Wikipedia That makes sense to me. So, what's wrong with Progressivism? It all sounds positive to me. This is what Right Wing News says: "Despite voluminous amounts of saccharine coated “progressive” rhetoric to the contrary, today’s “progressives” do not care about “the little guy”, women, children, or minorities of any shape, color, creed, form or substance. Their method is to surreptitiously use cultural Marxism, critical theory and political correctness in combination with gradual inevitability to create divided, hyphenated special interest victim groups. Once those groups have been created, the next step is to inflame those groups with hate-filled red herring and straw-man hyperbole in hopes that the under-educated, under-informed and/or fully indoctrinated members of those hyphenated special interest victim groups will vote against Conservative Americans who have been targeted for character assassination." The “progressive” Agenda for America | John Hawkins' Right Wing News My initial reaction to this critique of progressivism in the USA is the GOP is projecting. What do you think?

Good question! The maximum surface area is used to collect as much solar power and water as possible. The suburbs surrounding the city maybe can contribute their excess water and power. Remember that all city pavement (sidewalks, parking lots, streets, and highways) will have rainwater runoff. As much as possible will be channeled to local reservoirs. You can't solve ALL problems. Maybe besides covering all roofs in a city with solar cells, you can also have solar cells embedded on pavement, sidewalks, parking lots, streets, and highways? Another thing, storm shelters for all houses. 100 years from now weather may be so extreme that hurricanes and tornadoes are more common. Tsunami shelters for all island and coastal dwellers!

In 100 years from now, what features would you expect a house to have? POWER: By 2122 you would think that all roofing material would be very durable and covered with solar cells. The entire roof will generate power to be stored in banks of super batteries. Only a fraction of the power generated on the roof will be needed by the household, most will go to community batteries for local public use. WATER: Where I live in dry southern Calif, fresh water will become an issue. I was thinking of gutters to collect all rainwater. But simpler than that, and a great expansion of surface area for rain to be captured would be to have about an 8-foot concrete margin around the perimeter of the house, sloping towards the house to save all that water, channeled into drains to the reservoir under the house, skipping the need for gutters. All the water that lands on the roof pours off and it collected in drains around the house. Also rain runoff from streets, sidewalks, and parking lots, would channel rainwater to local reservoirs. INSULATION: The walls and windows would be incredibly insulating, and yet thin, durable, and non-flammable. Very little energy would be needed to change the climate inside the house. Once a dwelling is room temperature, even if the temp outside is very high or low, the insulation is so good that it stays room temperature inside. FOOD PRODUCTION: Everybody has greenhouses to grow a lot of good stuff at home. What else?

"In Mark Rienzi's Aug. 22 letter, he mischaracterized the study of abortion's effects on crime. He stated that the study implies that abortions among poor and minority women reduced crime, when it says no such thing. It states that babies born to mothers who do not want them, due to life circumstances, are more likely to grow up neglected and/or abused, which makes them more likely to turn to crime. "That is proven by many studies of children. The authors simply are stating that fewer unwanted children mean reduced abuse and neglect; reduced abuse and neglect means reduced crime. Sounds logical to me, and race has nothing to do with it." "More than 30 years ago, Hans Forssman at Sweden's Goteborg University followed 120 children born after their mother's requests for abortion had been denied. These unwanted offspring had significantly higher rates of crime, mental illness, welfare dependence, school misbehavior and alcoholism. The unwanted girls had more early, and out-of-wedlock, pregnancies. The unwanted boys were behavior problems in their military service. The recent study confirms these findings." Unwanted Children, Unwanted Crime - The Washington Post

When a woman decides that she would rather abort her fetus than give birth, it could indicate that perhaps she would not be the ideal parent for that child. Unwanted children often grow up to be criminals. Tens of millions of abortions have happened since Row v Wade. How many of them would have been unwanted, abused, neglected, and sent to the street to be educated as criminals.

Nothing much will be done about saving rainwater until the price of water goes up. I remember when my average cost per gallon of water was 1/2 cent per gallon. Now, 20 years later, it is still only a penny a gallon.

What percentage of homes and businesses collect and use their rainwater runoff? It has to become popular and wide spread or it doesn't help much. I collect a little, but not enough. Yes, where do the multi-unit reservoirs go? Maybe some engineer has an idea where it can go. The last big rain we had in Socal, my barrel filled in an hour and hundreds of gallons ran off into the street. And that was just me. Yes, a lot of places treat sewage, but not all. Many places in the world still dump in the ocean. "In the U.S. sewage first goes to treatment facilities where it’s processed into liquid and solids. After the liquid is cleaned (filtration and chlorine) it can be reintroduced into our rivers and oceans. Modern treatment plants don’t allow actual fecal matter to enter our oceans, however, it’s not the case for all countries. Older infrastructure, overflows, and broken sewage lines can cause millions of gallons of untreated sewage to seep into rivers and oceans." Does Sewage Go Into The Ocean (The Answer May Surprise You) (beachlifeexpert.com)

The SIZE of a star is determined more by how old it is than its' mass. Very massive stars are not so giant when they are young. For example, our sun will grow in size until it reaches Earth's orbit. Very massive stars burn hot and die young in a supernova, before they grow much in size.

"Given the energy intensive nature of desalination, with associated economic and environmental costs, desalination is generally considered a last resort after water conservation. But this is changing as prices continue to fall." Desalination - Wikipedia Rain water harvesting could be a major source of fresh water. If enough houses and buildings were designed with gutters that collect all the rain that lands on a roof, and all that runs off pavement, that water could be saved in big reservoirs attached to any house or building. That water can be used for growing plants and all households needs. Watering lawns should be discouraged but rather use drought-resistant landscaping. The sewer system depends on rain water flushing the waste to the ocean, but much rain water could be skimmed off to be saved and used locally. "One of the strategies in water conservation is rain water harvesting.[8] Digging ponds, lakes, canals, expanding the water reservoir, and installing rain water catching ducts and filtration systems on homes are different methods of harvesting rain water. Many people in many countries keep clean containers so they can boil it and drink it, which is useful to supply water to the needy.[8] Harvested and filtered rain water can be used for toilets, home gardening, lawn irrigation, and small scale agriculture." Water conservation - Wikipedia

"Given the energy intensive nature of desalination, with associated economic and environmental costs, desalination is generally considered a last resort after water conservation. But this is changing as prices continue to fall." Desalination - Wikipedia

When the moon first formed it was much closer to Earth. It had HUGE tidal force on Earth's core. Could the moon have cranked the Earth's liquid core, like kick starting a motorcycle? Maybe because of the moon our liquid core was pushed and pulled by the moon over millions of years, before moving so far away as to not have much affect. Earth's liquid core was supercharged at the start, and that is why we are still protected by a strong-enough magnetic field?

There is no mention of slavery. People are migrating north, searching for employment. Here is a good job that pays better than expected. First you need to build a small conventional water-desalination plant to supply water to the work force. They pour thousands of concrete slabs, and manufacture thousands of square feet of glass. As sections are completed, the passive, sun-powered, distillation system starts creating a freshwater oasis, that spreads outward. Effort would be made to not ruin the desert for the scarce wildlife, there would be spaces between the ponds, for wildlife. The oasis would cultivate it's own crops, and produce most of it's own food. This would be small-scale terraforming.

Is this a possible source of fresh water? In theory this is the way it works. There is a steady migration of unskilled labor thru the US southern border. Let's put them to work. That is the region where this idea can work. You need coastal deserts and lots of unskilled labor. There are coastal deserts on the Pacific side and the Gulf side of the US border, both in the USA and in Mexico. The idea is to build hundreds, then thousands, of shallow concrete ponds. The ponds are covered with glass made from abundant desert sand. Huge pipes deliver seawater from the Pacific and Gulf of Mexico into these coastal desert concrete ponds. Unskilled laborers mix and pour concrete slabs and manufacture glass. Inside the covered ponds the temperature gets very hot in the desert sun. That rapidly evaporates seawater. The condensation collects inside glass covers and flows by gravity to a central collector. After most of the seawater is converted into freshwater, the remaining brine in each pond is pumped out to a dumping area in the desert wastelands to create salt flats. Some of that salt and minerals can also be used later.

What are your trusted aggregators? How much do they charge? (I've never heard of an aggregator)

I still don't see how the moon could affect Earth's liquid core significantly. It could 3 billion years ago, because it was so close to Earth. The liquid core has been insulated from any moon/Earth-crust friction for a long time now. Or am I wrong?

How do you get your news? Do you watch cable TV and when there is an interesting story you follow up investigating it online? Or do you search news online? I usually watch Youtube, MSNBC or CNN, and take a quick look at Fox News or Newsmax occasionally.

Yes, but did you ever hear, in the news, that Trump wanted to exactly TIE Biden's number of votes in Georgia? I never heard about it in the news.

When Trump pressured Raffensperger to cheat and give him 11,780 more votes, it would only give Trump a TIE. Trump complained he was behind by 11,779 votes ("one more than we have"), so if Raffensperger would "FIND" 11,780 votes that would exactly match the number of Biden votes, and it would BE A TIE 😁 Trump: "So look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state." Trump knows he won the state because he has big rallies and Biden doesn't. ‘I just want to find 11,780 votes’: Trump pressures Georgia officials as state’s runoffs approach (yahoo.com)

"Reggae music comes from Trenchtown, now it's ina firehouse..."