Why do a non profit?

Someone asked me that and I guess I'd better have a good answer to that.  In my younger days, I would just do it if the idea came to me, but as I have gotten older, I have become a little more cautious about jumping into things.  No big rush here to decide.  But the tendency is always there, so I have to watch it.

There isn't much advantage to me personally.  If more people read this, it may be a way to get more audience.  But that doesn't necessarily translate into a profitable situation ( aside from the nonprofit's activities).  So for me, maybe not so much.

Whatever advantage that may result from this may come to everyone, not to one person in particular.  You may be thinking, this is awfully grandiose.  What makes you so sure that this is so good that it will benefit everyone?  The answer to that is that there is no incentive for anyone in particular to do it.  Just look at my case here.  Why do it if there's no profit in it?  From the economic perspective, there isn't one that can be predicted in such a way as to be able to reliably benefit one person or a group of persons.  The advantage, which I am attempting to gain, is by having the unorganized masses act in their own behalf, as opposed to being acted upon, which is the normal case.  In politics, the incentive is for a small interested minority to get the government to favor its interests, which do not necessarily coincide with the interests of the whole.  Hence, worthwhile projects that could benefit everybody do not get done, but the opposite occurs.  This is what I believe is plaguing us today in general, and in particular- to energy and space exploration.

I've covered these topics before, so I won't repeat it all again.  To put it succinctly, the government isn't interested in these projects in any serious way that will benefit everyone because there is no definite constituency for them, but the reverse.  There's no enough profit to save on energy, but more profit on letting oil prices go through the roof.  Same for energy.  The people don't get mad, they just keep on paying, and paying, and paying.  When it comes to space, the government already had the means to go to Mars in the late sixties.  The Saturn V could have done the job.  A nuclear upper stage was in an advanced stage of development.  I would venture that if the Russians beat us to the Moon, then the government was fully committed to taking the space race to Mars.  Once we beat the Russians to the Moon, it was all over.  Now, the entire space program is just a jobs program.  The government really wasn't there to "benefit mankind", regardless of the rhetoric to the contrary.  The government was there to serve a narrow constituency.

The problem is:  how do you get people who are not interested in this to pay attention and do something about it?  People are too apathetic, or they are too trusting.  One might ask, if it was so good, why isn't anyone doing anything about it?  The answer is that it really is good, but not for the people who are running the show.  Therefore, they won't do it.  But the people who will benefit from it either don't care about it, which is either from ignorance or worse, or they have some childlike innocence that these government types are really there to help them.  In short, if the people insist upon acting like sheep, the government is all too willing to feed upon them like ravenous wolves.

I can't make people care about stuff they should care about.  I can write about it.  I can talk about it.  But I can't do anybody's thinking for them.  If people are foolish enough to let others do that for them, they pretty much deserve what they will get.  There is just so much that you can do.

Fuel Processor google search

Some links I saved up recently.

fuel processors

     Nuvera

     PCI Fuel Processors  , PEM Fuel Processor

     HowStuffWorks Fuel Processors  How Fuel Cells Work

Notes: 1) could set up fuel processors at gas distribution points.  this would enable these businesses to obtain another income stream and thus a larger market for their products.  a potential customer would buy their hydrogen from these locations.

Nova program on Netflix

Some thoughts on that:  it was about the next big thing.  One of ideas that caught my attention was about energy.  One fellow from Nebraska wants to bioengineer microbes to produce diesel fuel.  My reaction is that this is all fine and dandy, but you are still using internal combustion engines.  A question:  would it be feasible to use a fuel processor on this biofuel, or any other biofuel?

Fiddling about with YouTube

Someone says it can't be customized without programming knowledge.  I can customize it, I think.  Well, maybe not customize, but I can make it bigger or smaller.

Here's my YouTube Superhero series all on one page:




One can see all the short stories at the same time. If I had done this first before releasing them all, I could have made a more integrated story.

Adam Osborne article

I remember this guy.  The book they mentioned -"Computer Entrepreneurs"- is one that I still have, if I can find it in a box somewhere.

I remember the Radio Shack Videotex, because I bought one.  I was online way, way before it was cool.  I worked in a Radio Shack store, and they sold TRS-80 machines back when personal computers were just toys.

I remember the name Dan Bricklin and Visicalc ( spreadsheet in case you didn't know).

I remember the CP/M operating system (forerunner of MSDOS, Windows).

I like this quote:

“Getting into these oh-how-great-I-am or oh-how-important-this-is mindsets squelches the game of creativity, in my experience.”

You know you are getting old when something like this, which was so high tech at the time, looks so old and clunky.  Oh, my!  It's called computer nostalgia!  What happens to old geeks anyway?

Kardashev scale

As of this moment, my decision was to not do the non profit.  This decision is not final.  I'm still thinking about it.  If I am happy with the name of it, a way to fund it, and a way to fund myself, so I can support myself, I may do it anyway.

I need a name for the non profit if it is to become a legal entity.  So, I'm looking at using Kardashev in the name because it encompasses a couple of a main themes in my blog and my Facebook page.  The term Kardashev level, when applied to a civilization, means the level to which that civilization has mastered energy and space colonization.  There are 3 major Types of Kardashev civilizations.  We haven't even reached Type I yet.

Type I is mastery of the Earth.  Type II is mastery of the Solar System.  Type III is mastery of a galaxy.  I would postulate that Type I is the only one necessary.  I would also postulate that at least a Type I must be mastered if civilization, as we know it, is to survive for long.   I observe that wars are often fought over scarce resources.  Scarce resources are scarce because the Earth itself is finite.  Space is not.  If space is not mastered, we are doomed to a future in which wars are inevitable, and probably increasingly destructive.

Here's some names I'm knocking around:

Kardashev's conundrum, Inc.  A conundrum is a sort of riddle.
Kardashev's paradox, Inc.  A contradiction between two statements that, when taken separately, appear true.
Kardashev's  dilemma, Inc.  Colloquial term as an example would be: "between a rock and a hard place".

Here's some derived names from the above:

Answering Kardashev's Riddle, Inc.
Resolving Kardashev's Paradox, Inc.
Solving Kardashev's Dilemma, Inc.


Mastery of energy implies outcomes and entails risks that may not be acceptable to all people.  Looking upon the modern scene, it appears to me that the desire to master energy is lacking.  Certain influential people don't want to use nuclear power nor fossil fuels.  The desire to master fusion power seems hesitant as well, since certain initiatives have to go begging for money.   For example, Robert Bussard's polywell device seems rather promising, yet politicians don't seem to be all that enthusiastic about getting it funded.  Eric Lerner's Focus Fusion device is in a similar place.  Tokomak's do get funding, even though it is expensive, and most likely because the goal is far off and therefore not likely to be achieved anytime soon.  As soon as Tokomaks seem to be on the verge of success, most likely the opposition to continued funding may actually increase.

Poll is still running

I have to repeat that I want feedback on this non profit idea.  You can participate in the poll here.  So far, nobody has voted.  Voting ends today.

Why you should vote:
1)  I identified an economic rationale for fuel cells on my last post.  Who else is doing this?
2)  I can identify additional economic rationales in the future.  Who else will do that?
3) These ideas can benefit everyone and they cost little, if anything.  Why not support it?  What's the risk?


So far, just one person at the Facebook site has offered any feedback at all.  I am asking for feedback and I am going to have to insist upon having it.   Here is how you can vote:  go to this link and look for the link called "poll" and click on it.  That should get you to the poll.  If you are having trouble getting to this, or finding it, go to the Facebook Badge on this page and click on it.  Leave a comment there and I will check it out.  If I find any technical difficulties, I will extend the hours of the poll.   I will move the Facebook badge to the top of this page for easy reference.  There will be no excuses for lack of participation.

Update:

I am going to post on this post only for the rest of the day.  That is so this post stays at the top and anyone coming here will have to see this first.  lol

Here's a proposed project that will support two ideas at once.  If I can get people on board, I will go with that first.  Here it is.  The first thing the non profit will do is to collect money for an ad to go onboard the next JP Aerospace mission.  I have one purchased already for this blog which will go on the upcoming mission which should launch any day now.  This ad cost 400 dollars.  Yep.  I spent 400 bucks on it.  But, I won't be doing that again.  Instead, I will have the non profit do it and this time it will advertise for Focus Fusion.  Why Focus Fusion?  Because I like it.  It is the easiest to understand of the net power Fusion proposals that I've seen.  If this is perfected, it will open up space exploration and colonization ( as well as a lot of other things).  If you like this proposal, vote! (dammit)

Update:

Here's another idea, but this one is to get people who come here to vote.  If you don't vote, there will no be no more posts until you do.  If this thing goes till the deadline with no votes at all, then I am going to extend the hours or days until I get some votes, or the blog itself pageviews will go to zero.  That's it.  I will not produce any more material until I get some votes.


Update:

Quid Pro Quo!  That's what I'm looking for!



Update:

Ignore that last poll. No one has voted in it yet, anyhow. The same question is here, but it is extended one more day. I don't know why, but the old poll seems to be not working anymore. The website says it still is, though.

Once again, try this link to the poll.

Also, if you have a problem with the polling service, or you'd rather not take the poll, then you are free to comment.  I've checked the poll and the commenting functions, they both work.  In addition, you can go to the Facebook page and hit the like button.  I will change back to unmoderated commenting for this one post, if you want to be anonymous.

Update:

Still no votes on the poll.  It should continue to run all day.  I'll keep it up until it stops working.   As for feedback, I got a comment which was treated as spam.  Pitiful.   On the Facebook site, still only one person giving the thumbs up.  It appears that people are looking at it, but that is all.  Traffic is down a bit here, but not zero yet.

Zero pageviews and if it goes terminal means death to this blog.   Do I really want to do that?  No.

Update:

It looks like the poll has closed, and no votes.  I won't extend it further.  Why do people come here?   The thought has occurred to me that nobody actually is, it could be just robots.  Or, if anybody is coming, they don't want to say anything, nor to participate in any way.   Whatever the reason, I wanted feedback and I didn't get it.  Now what do I do about that?

I have decided against the non profit.  It is now a  matter of what else to do about it.

Working with spreadsheet and doing what if scenarios

I hope this is readable. I worked on some spreadsheet comparisons in order to get some idea on what would be economical in terms of various scenarios. I started with what is commonly looked at, and then proceeded to something from my own experience as a driver. I got some pretty interesting numbers.

 I've got six scenarios.  1) today's gas prices with current comparable vehicles with some likely numbers filled in for trade in's and so forth  2)  today's gas prices, but add a fuel cell and increase the price of the vehicle accordingly, assume a 250000 life  meaning drivers who drive a lot ( like me)  3) the same scenario, but assume increasing energy prices average 50 percent over the time period  4) Now switch to a bigger vehicle and adjust gas mileage according, reset back to today's prices and assume you can add a fuel cell at the price indicated  5) same as 4, but increase fuel prices by 50 %, , and finally 6) double the fuel prices.

Conclusion:  If they can make a pickup truck that will last 250000 miles, get a decent range between fillups, and don't lose too much in fuel economy while doing it, they will have a winner.  They will have a BIG winner, if gasoline prices go up a lot, which is distinct possibility.  Car makers should concentrate on putting fuel cells on larger vehicles first.

NOTE: I regret the lack of readability. Sorry.

Update:  I reworked the spreadsheet and added a scenario.  Also, I made the fuel economy of the larger vehicle less and still got some favorable numbers.

Is this the real deal or a fake?

You tell me.

Corporations require some governance

If this were to become a non profit, it must become a corporation.  Otherwise, it couldn't qualify for 501(c)(3) Nonprofit Corporation status.  This is one of the questions that must get answered.  In order to answer that question, I looked this website up and it may be useful for that purpose.

An example:  let's say I want to appoint a secretary to the Board of Directors.  (At the moment, I am the Board of Directors, if I set up this corporation)   I would need something that would legalize it ( I think).  This site will produce the needed document for a fee ($15.50)  By the way, it should be obvious that this isn't LegalZoom.

To find out how much it costs to produce this document, you have to go another page as we see above.

That means that any decision needed will cost some money.  Naturally, I want to keep these to an absolute minimum.  If, on the other hand, the money came in, this could be more easily afforded.

I want people who are interested to have some say in this, so I will include this poll.  If nobody votes in this poll, I am going to consider this a very bad sign.

Sometime today I am going to get an answer to this question

Drum roll please...

And the question is:  What if this idea bombs out?  What is the exit strategy for failure?  Once you set this thing up, what do you have to do to dissolve it?  You see, I don't want to start something and wonder how the heck I can get out of it if things go badly.

Update:

Just sent off an email with the above question to the gentlemen I spoke with yesterday at LegalZoom.   Let's see how long it takes to get a reply.

Update:

The answer is that yes, there is a registration to close a non profit if that is wished.  No further details were provided because, most likely, the question can't be answered because such circumstances are unknown in advance.

Update:

There's a lot to consider here, been looking a this.

Still looking into the non profit

It looks like my Amazon account can be converted, so that means the entire revenue stream from this blog can be brought under the umbrella of the nonprofit structure.  Inasmuch as there hasn't been any revenue from Amazon, it would seem not to matter, but I suppose it could if people decided to support this cause in this fashion as opposed to other ways.

Focus Fusion Society

They've got a funding option for anyone wanting to donate.  For me to jump into this would seem a bit presumptuous.  Why should I think that I would do better than they would?  Here's an undeniable truth.  I've never done any fundraisers before.  I have no practical experience in doing it.  Yet, here I am considering it.

The truth is, how can anyone do any worse?  Well...  I suppose it's possible.   Oh, well.


 Here's a good point that I found on the website.  The point is that energy gets so little funding when compared to other research and development efforts.  It appeals to reason, yet reason doesn't seem to be drawing in the great crowds.

Politics need bogey men, people need solutions

An illustration of this can be seen in this article at Politico.  Instead of actually attempting to implement an agenda that will do what they claim that they are for, these people look for enemies to demonize in order to cast blame on their own failure to do the same.

“For progressives confused at the heated opposition to their do-gooder agenda, the Kochs became convenient scapegoats,” asserts the Weekly Standard’s Matthew Continetti this week in a long cover story defending the Kochs. Liberals in the media have “ascribed every bad thing under the sun to the brothers and their checkbooks. Pollution, the Tea Party, global warming denial—the Kochs were responsible,” Continetti writes, asserting that in recent months “whenever you turned on MSNBC or clicked on the Huffington Post you’d see the Kochs described in terms more applicable to Lex Luthor and General Zod.”

 Instead of finding a way to implement an agenda that may reduce carbon dioxide emissions, these guys worry about the Koch brothers.  If they would just find a economic winner in terms of an energy source that wasn't a fossil fuel, the argument would be over.  It doesn't help them to support higher energy prices as a way make uneconomic energy sources more attractive by comparison.

If the new energy source created jobs, reduced the deficit, improved the living standards of everyone, raised the middle class, leveled the economic playing field, it would do everything they say that they are for.  But, for some reason, they are not interested in that.   Nope, they are more interested in finding bogey men to rationalize their failures.

A contrast in commercials, it is said

First, the winner:





Next, the loser:



I like the loser better.

Anniversary of Gagarin's flight

Came across this video linked from Trent Waddington (QuantumG) while I was perusing Twitter just now.  I read through the comments and there was some wacky stuff there.  The video was uploaded to YouTube by "RussiaToday".

Not to be disrespectful to Russian achievements at all, but why denigrate American achievements in space? Weird.

The anniversary is on April 12th, which is nearly two weeks from today.  Why mention it now?

Nonprofit, part 3

The third of the series, in which I am exploring the idea of creating a non profit organization for the furtherance of promoting one of the ideas presented here thus far in this blog.

After a thought, I am considering including a generalized concept of promoting proposed solutions to the energy problem which the country (and the world) faces today.  If it were to be generalized, why not bring the entire blog under the umbrella of the nonprofit organization?  To put it a bit facetiously, this blog is already non profit.  It certainly qualifies in that regard.

If I were to do this, then the donation button on this page will be changed to the nonprofit as means of fundraising for that cause.  The money would not go to me.  Inasmuch as that attempt has been a failure, I suppose this way can be tried and see if it can actually generate some income.  Not for me, mind you, but for the cause.  For my own part, I will have to work as usual at a real job.  But that doesn't have to begin right now.  I have time to set this up and see what happens.  If it gets a similar response to what has been the case so far, it may not have a long life.  On the other hand, if it is successful, it may become self supporting and could actually hire people.  (gasp)  But that is probably a long shot, so we'll let that slide for the time being.

I might want to reiterate that the purpose of this is not to support me, but to support the cause.  Meaning the only reason to hire anybody is if somebody is actually needed to do what is necessary.  In the beginning, 100 percent of any donations will go to the cause.  Or as close to 100 percent as I can get.  No personal expenses will be taken out.  Expenses should be low in the beginning.  I'm going to have to keep it that way.

I should also say that I haven't made any decisions yet.  Just thought I would share some thoughts in case anyone is interested.

Note:  I have added another label for easy reference to all posts of this type in the future.  (Nonprofit organization)

Environmental elitism

This topic came up today while I was watching videos on Netflix.

It is hard to see why anyone would be against protecting the environment, but on the other hand, why is it that this protection seems to harm the people that the so called progressives claim to want to help?

But this blog is not intended to start those type of arguments.  For example, even though I don't subscribe to the theory of man made global warming, I can see a benefit in transitioning to a non fossil fuel energy source.  But when I watch these people pushing ideas like wind and solar power, I wonder if they are serious people.  While pushing these "renewables", they seem all too willing to block the tried and true methods of energy production.  Instead of coming up with a better way that truly makes sense economically, they seem to be forcing their ideas upon people and making them pay for it in the meantime.

But again, this is not to start an argument.  It is meant to research real solutions to the problem.  It is hard for me to see how wind and solar and be a real solution.  If fossil fuels aren't sustainable, neither are wind and solar.  Wind and solar were sustainable 100 years ago, but not today.  The modern world has many more people in it and these people can't subsist on the horse and buggy era economics that existed a hundred years ago.

Hence my interest in fusion power research.  Also, it explains my interest in the space program.  I believe the solution to the energy problem can be found in space.  It would seem that those in the so called progressive movement would at least show some interest in this.  My impression is the left is more interested in the jobs program aspect of space than in actually solving real problems with knowledge gained from the space program.

It reminds me of something I once observed.  The government seems interested in solving problems that don't exist or not likely to exist; using means in which to allegedly solve such problems that are the most expensive amongst the various alternatives, and which have the least chance of succeeding.

If I am wrong, I would not mind being shown where I am wrong, and be specific about it.

There seems to be some interest

I've gotten a larger than normal number of pageviews yesterday, presumably in response to my last post with respect to the fundraising idea.  It seems to be enough for me to continue to explore the idea.  I looked into setting up the legal documents necessary for a non profit organization.  But, it is going to take more interest than this for me to commit because we are talking about significant expenses here.

I went to LegalZoom for the necessary documents and services and to get a price quote for a package that will set it up.  It looks to be between 300 and 400 dollars for the most economical package.  I could easily spend more if I were to decide to opt for a number of other things they want to sell to me.  So, this isn't exactly a freebie here.

Frankly, if I were to ever do something like this, I want to keep it simple.  LegalZoom asked a lot of questions about it and I had to give answers.  The answers, as one might expect, are kept in the most simple form.  I hope that is understood.  I answered the questions, but no action has been taken yet.  Basically, it all will boil down to how to pay for this and whether or not the interest exists to carry on with it.