Category Archives: Apocalypse Soon

Church of England Apologises to Darwin

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The Church of England is to issue a formal apology to Charles Darwin for rejecting his theory of evolution almost 150 years ago.  I’m kind of impressed by this, actually.  It probably won’t help the radicals come to grips with their prejudice, but it’s a nice gesture that might help to push things back towards sanity.  Any shift in that direction, however slight, is a welcome change these days.

Opposition to evolutionary theories is still “a litmus test of faithfulness” for some Christian movements, the Church will admit. It will say that such attitudes owe much to a fear of perceived threats to Christianity.

Huh, ya think?

We have talked about the Church of England before.  They seem remarkably progressive for a church….

The End of Oil

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I was captivated by Wired’s article on Shai Agassi, an entrepreneur from Israel who believes he can reboot the car industry in a fascinating way with a brilliant take on electric vehicles.  The article introduced me to the (apparently) growing concept of buying a car but leasing the batteries, which seems to make a lot of sense.

“…It was an unorthodox mashup of the automotive and mobile phone industries. Instead of gas stations on every corner, the ERGO would blanket a country with a network of “smart” charge spots. Drivers could plug in anywhere, anytime, and would subscribe to a specific plan—unlimited miles, a maximum number of miles each month, or pay as you go—all for less than the equivalent cost for gas. They’d buy their car from the operator, who would offer steep discounts, perhaps even give the cars away. The profit would come from selling electricity—the minutes.

There would be plugs in homes, offices, shopping malls. And when customers couldn’t wait to “fill up,” they’d go to battery exchange stations where they would pull into car-wash-like sheds, and in a few minutes, a hydraulic lift would swap the depleted battery with a fresh one. Drivers wouldn’t pay a penny extra: The ERGO would own the battery.”

This is a novel take on an old problem, how long it takes to recharge a battery.  It’s not going to work if you can’t get a reasonable range out of a 5 minute “fill up”.  I also love the idea of an operating system for your car that has some intelligence built into it, it makes tons of sense.  The potential of a location-aware vehicle alone is considerable, especially in traffic management.

It’s a fascinating read, I can’t wait to see if this is a success.  He really strongly believes he can change the world, and I have all of my fingers crossed that he does it.  Read it now.

McCain is now 6 days older than the last time I said he was too old

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This thing is getting bigger, rather than going away. I sort of mentioned a few days ago that I thought that McCain was a tad old to be running for President, especially because he can’t use the Internet, and barely uses a computer.  It seems that he is unusually out of touch, even for an old fart.  Unlike McCain:

“About three-quarters of white, college-educated men age over 65 use the Internet,”

That’s from an AP article on Wired that has (gasp!) actual quotes from people even older than McCain who rely on the internet daily. I just want to be clear that this isn’t ageism, you can choose to not participate in the Internet, but I think that also disqualifies you from leading the most powerful nation in the world of people who do participate.

Here’s hoping they don’t elect this clown, he is to the Internet what Bush is to pretzels.

Breaking News: Old Fart too old to be President

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Apparently some Americans think that McCain is a little too old to be President (he’s 71, will turn 72 before the elections are over).  Just a tad too old.  Okay, maybe really really ancient.

It seems that the topic keeps coming up during his campaign, and it’s certainly not going to go away.

In fact, some people are rather transfixed by it.  This website keeps a rather lengthy list of things that McCain is older than:

Six-packs, automatic transmissions and the American Express card were all introduced after he was born – not to mention computers, which McCain admits he doesn’t use.

That quote is from an article that examines some of the numbers behind this issue.

Overall, 38 per cent said “too old” describes McCain somewhat or very well….

Personally, it’s the computer comment above that would worry me most, and not just because I’m a geek.  I just have to think that someone who doesn’t even use a computer in this day and age is not really qualified to have any global power, whatsoever.  I mean I don’t expect him to be an expert, but come on, most grandmothers his age can check their email.  That’s a pretty grim outlook in my mind.  How will he make intelligent decisions in any capacity in the globalized world today?  Sure, he will have expert advisors and such, but I think it reveals a certain “out-of-touch”ness to his attitudes that would be a disaster if he actually won.

My 2 cents.

**** Update:

Apparently I’m not the only one with these kinds of crackpot ideas.  The Russian President just issued a warning to all of his elected officials to brush up on their computer skills, or they could be out of a job.

President Dmitry Medvedev says the government doesn’t hire people who can’t read and write, and computer literacy today is the same.

So there you go.  I completely agree with basic computer literacy as a minimum for most jobs these days, even if you are swinging a hammer you need to be able to interface with the rest of us.

Ray Ray Ray

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Sorry for the lengthy absence, I fell off the blog wagon there.

Fortunately there are lots of things to talk about today though.  First off we have an incredibly cool picture of a golden ray migration off the coast of Mexico, thousands of rays moving through the water.  Incredible.

Golden Ray migration in Mexico

It reminds me of that Jellyfish Lake I posted about a little while back, similarly beautiful and deadly.

Golden Ray migration from Boing Boing.

Post title is a little ADHS bonus.  You know who you are.

Debunking Conventional Thinking

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Wired has a good piece on “Inconvenient Truths” about green living and climate change.  The idea is that to win the fight against global warming, common beliefs are often wrong.  There are some good ones in here, here’s a list of my favourites:

I particularly like the point about how living right in a city (not the burbs where we are) is the most efficient for many reasons.  Lower car usage, apartment buildings are more efficient to heat and cool, and no lawn mowing add up to a lot of savings.  The lawn mower in particular is a kicker for me.  These things are ridiculous for emissions.  The only saving grace I can think of is we only need to cut the grass like 15 times a year, tops, due to the fact we live in a frozen benighted climate.

Anyway it’s a good read, I highly recommend it.