If it slows down too much, we'll be forced to fix it with that old Sci-Fi catch-all procedure; "NUKE IT!"

I take your point, but what is the ERoEI of Shale oil? There are limits to the speed of extracting the non-conventional oils, and they take SERIOUS investment and lots of time. I don't think the non-conventional oil will have a remote chance of replacing conventional oil at the speed at which we need it to come online — not even the most optimistic stuff I've read the tar-sands boosters in Canada raving about has a chance of replacing the accumulative depletion rate of oil post-peak. And this depletion rate gets larger each and ever year, with 56 out of the top 65 oil producing nations having peaked. There's going to be rationing, one way or another. Shame it will have to smack us into a Great Depression, but that's probably what it will take to WAKE US UP to the limits of geology and DO something about it. There's plenty we can do, when the political willpower arrives. I'm not a Malthusian doomer. But peak oil denial just isn't funny any more.

You sound sympathetic to Open Source, so what would it take to swing Australian government and business around, especially when Russia have already mandated that everything on public desktops has to be open source by 2015?

I forgot to say, this was a rant I just put up on my blog. http://eclipsenow.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/how-the-marketplace-of-software-squanders-human-capital/

Even though I'm not in I.T. and am not a computer developer or programmer, I just have to have a good old-fashioned rant about this one! Microsoft recently commissioned a study into just how much money adopting Open Source can really cost an organisation. It seems that when a company adopts new software, it takes a bunch of time and money to build all the systems from scratch, get them all working together smoothly, and then retrain all the workers. Surprise surprise!

But this superficial study ignores the fact that every time Microsoft callously upgrades their Operating System without due diligence into compatibility problems with a trillion other bits of software and hardware out there, there are a gazillion compatibility issues to sort out. All the IT professionals run off to classes and seminars and have to retrain anyway, and then begin the mammoth task of ironing out all their unique business software routines, banging it all into shape and forcing it to work. It takes time. Microsoft upgrades are a major pain in the butt to the IT staff on any decent sized firm! Of course, they want this. It guarantees job security. But must the job itself be so painful?

To top it all off, Microsoft are being hypocritical here. They are warning against the change to Open Source software because of the costs in changing, yet ignore just how enormously they had just changed Microsoft Office 2007 when they introduced the Ribbon bar across all the old drop down menu's we used to know! Their rather experimental Ribbon was not just a view option leaving all the old commands and drop down menu's intact, but instead killed many of the old commands and routines users knew. It was an autocratic rewrite of the entire Office suite forcing everyone to go back to basics and learn how to suck eggs. The sheer human capital lost in this arrogant decision was astonishing! Workers with years of Office experience, who could format Word with ease and design beautiful Excel spreadsheets in their sleep, all suddenly found themselves powerless. As the old joke goes,

12. Every time GM introduced a new model, car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

I admit to being an idealist and dreamer, and maybe even a tiny bit lazy. Or is that sane? At a deep, gut level, I just feel that once I learn a piece of basic software like Word I should not have to re-learn the basics all over again. Call me lazy, but I don't want progress and new functionality to force me to have to relearn the basics. The modern world is complex enough, thank you very much!

So even though we are graphic designers and forced to use Mac, the one thing that keeps me wishing a Mac-ish Open Source revolution would sweep away all competitors is the fact that the Open Source model is more grassroots driven, and less likely to waste so much human capital on pointless 'renovations' to the software. Not only that, but it is Open source! The code is open, and available to all. Programmers can design stuff compatible with their Open standards. Microsoft isn't Open. They keep the latest editions of Word locked so that I can't open a .docx file in Open Office. We're talking about a monopoly here! So why on earth did the Australian government mandate support for a monopoly!?

I want the world's governments to accelerate their support of Open Source, not retard it. I like the fact that the Chinese and Russian governments are transitioning into Open Source.

It could eventually save 10's of billions of dollars! I remember a few years back glancing at a study that said tens of billions could be saved across America if the government just paid enough software engineers to develop the best Open Source software possible. The savings to government directly would be one thing, but the saving across the broader economy would be exponentially larger.

If I ran the world I would put all the programmers, Mac designers, psychologists, business leaders, learning and educational experts all in the one room and have them nut out THE best User Interface. They would then standardise it across all platforms and functions, and users would know where basic formatting and print and regular functions were across all the software in all industries. It would be beautiful, easy, and consistent. It would be open, and encourage compatibility. It would be free. And it could possibly even be democratic, with grassroots communities voting on changes to the software proposed by the experts. Major overhauls like the Ribbon, for example, could be voted on.

In my dream world the Operating System and basic Office software would be so ubiquitous, so much a publicly owned asset, that changes in the software would be a matter of the nightly news the way changes to local parks would register on city news! Although, these changes would of course have global significance. A 60 second news item would announce any tinkering with the software, with encouragements to head off to the web-video's demonstrating the sexy new functions.

Once the public sector is heavily invested in Open Source standards, it can't be long before the downfall of monopolies like Microsoft and Mac. They have already had their war, and their software 'arms race' has invented massive innovations and led to the smart phone and iPad. But it is time to standardise while keeping the creativity. It is time to end the confusion. It is time to grab the best of everything and make it open, and give free software to the world. It is time to get this right, and train us computer users all up in the new thang, and make it work. Russia have mandated that all public computers run exclusively Open Source software by 2015. Why can't we?

Thing I don't get is where does the Co2 come from? If the reactor some how captures it from ambient airflow over the device, then that's *amazing*. But if they actually have to *assume* a good flow of concentrated Co2 from somewhere, isn't that adding to the cost? Sucking Co2 out of the air would become a whole new industry, expensive enough in its own right! And if they are talking about using Co2 captured from some fossil fuel plant, then, ummm, isn't that defeating the whole point? It's still addicted to fossil fuels.

When Russia and China appear to be moving away from paying for a ridiculously overpriced OS and Office software, our government is locking it in! Aaaargh! Don't they realise that if Western governments finally wean off the evil giant by growing their own Open Source versions of Linux, and creating beautiful efficient User-Interfaces in Open Office software, the whole economy can eventually wean off America's software and we all win? The Australian government should have mandated exactly the opposite! Today is a sad day to be an Australian. Geeks across the land will be tearing their shirts and throwing ashes over their heads, crying "Alas! Alas, we are undone!"

Gasoline engines are only 10% efficient, so the scheme is less efficient than electric cars + solar panels.

This is a good point! Imagine we build a fleet of GenIV nuclear reactors which could power the world for 500 years just on the nuclear waste we already have sitting around. That's reliable, baseload power despite the weather or season or that other great problem solar advocates don't like to mention, 'the night'. Now imagine most cars are Electric, and just charge at home or work or the shops. There could even be fast-charge stations on highways.

Now imagine that we save the precious gasoline for heavy vehicles, trains, and jets. This is doable! I wish the developers in this field the best of luck.

"I see stupid people. They're walking around like regular people, but they're stupid, and they don't even know they're stupid!"

One of the lines had the "mad scientist's" mum asking why on earth he'd want to make bacteria smart? The hero asked his mother, "Why are you so worried?" She answered, "Ask anyone that's ever cleaned a toilet bowl."

Mandate EV's instead? Hello? Peak oil?

Ok, so while we're all discussing electric cars, please please please get all your online mates to click "LIKE" on the Facebook page of this documentary so that they'll release the trailer! I'm getting desperate! (You couldn't tell?)

http://www.facebook.com/revengeoftheelectriccar

It's not like this one group are suddenly going to discover some magic new way of manufacturing solar PV cheap JUST BECAUSE they've decided to make it in the desert (horrible place) in Africa (sad place with sad history) because they have lots of sand. What am I missing? Rightly or wrongly, there's an exponentially growing solar PV world of industry out there trying lazer sliced 'sliver cells', dye-based photovoltaics that mimic nature's photosynthesis, and a bunch of other ideas.

But really, what we should be doing is pumping research into modularising Gen3 nuclear reactors and pulling them off the assembly line with standardised, routine safety inspections. Rather than reinventing the wheel each time we need to get Henry Ford about nukes. Build them fast, in an established routine, and it will make them cheap. Then when Gen4 arrives, Gen4 will just eat all that waste. Even just TODAY's nuclear waste could run the world for 500 years! And who knows what they'll have by then? A moon-base shooting solar PV into orbit for 24/7 space based solar power? Now THAT's solar I could live with! (But, with the tiny little detail of requiring the moon-base first. And hey, maybe we'll even crack fusion before then!)

The moment I read Solar PV I knew these guys had lost the plot. Why on earth do we need it to even have a pump, let alone moving parts and a costly Solar PV array to power it? If it's a big enough emergency, dump thousands of "Life Straws" into the field and let the wonder of the human mouth suck the water through the straw directly from the river, which filters it by the time it hits the lips. Solar PV? Are they trying to kill people by making this more expensive than it has to be? The Life Straw is also more flexible. People sometimes need to be on the move in emergencies. They can take their own Life Straw with them, and drink water from whatever river they find on the way.

There are also various bottle-filter versions that also use no power. They don't need it, as the hand cranks the water through the cleaning membranes.

There is also the Watercone, which again is portable, and can desalinate seawater with solar heat (but no Solar PV needed!) http://www.watercone.com/product.html But I guess when you work for MIT's space division and you have to reinvent something as basic as the wheel, one has to spend a million dollars to make a high tech space pen that will work in zero g rather than just use a pencil! The problem here, is we are talking about saving thousands of the world's poor. They can't afford the 'space-pen' version. (Or, more accurately, they can't afford the emergency relief agencies to have cost limit supply). Instead, lets dump thousands of Life Straws and Watercones, and let *people power* and sunlight provide the energy to save their own lives.

Dude, I totally agree with the recycling philosophy you're discussing. There are even new plasma burner technologies that will recycle municipal waste at an atomic level for us, ripping plastics and diapers and food waste back to constituent atoms and the resulting gases and slag are all used.
http://eclipsenow.wordpress.com/recycle/

However, my main reason for posting was to ask: where did you get your awesome sig? It is hilarious.

"You can't make a race horse of a pig" "No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"