Southwest Airline story

Comment:

The video breaks down the situation with the airlines and the Covid-19 jab mandate.

Briefly, it goes like this: the situation was already bad because of the reaction to the so-called pandemic. The jab mandate just made it all the worse. He compares it with running a prop engine plane's engine "too lean". Once it gets that way, it is on the verge of failure.

It is running "lean" because there has been a labor problem due to the lockdowns and such. Too many don't want to come back to work because they were getting paid not to work. Too many that did come back are being worked longer hours to deal with the demand and the understaffing. Once the mandate kicked in, a lot of folks, especially the lower-paid ones, decide to go do something else. This is what is driving the understaffing issue.

The pilots are highly paid. The only ones who would leave are the ones near retirement anyway. But the system could use all the pilots they can get because they are understaffed. Throw all the other understaffing issues in the mix, and the situation can go downhill in a bad way.

The moral of the story is that the administration has totally screwed the pooch on this one. The video follows...

Hydrogen Powered Car video

Comment:

There's plenty of coverage of the hydrogen fuel cell car on this blog. This is a bit of an update. Not that there's a whole lot of new stuff to report. There's a few nuggets of info here worth mentioning.

Evidently they've got the cost of fuel cell cars down a bit. The video says that Honda can sell one for $65k. For yours truly, that's a lot of buckos. Actually, a Tesla could run not too much less than that. But it is quite a bit better than some of the numbers that used to be cited--- hundreds of thousands of dollars is too rich for just about everybody except billionaires.

The other info is the cost of hydrogen. For some reason, it seems HIGHER now. Well, that's a shock ( no pun intended). One idea is to use cows to generate the hydrogen. It says that a cow can produce enough hydrogen to last one car for one year. So it's mileage is one cow per year? Still, that would be a lot of cows for the cars. If there's a hundred million cars, you'd need a hundred million cows. It seems like a niche idea. Nobody likes cows that much.

The guy making the video has no ideas of his own. He's just reporting on what's out there. He says there's no way to transport the hydrogen. Yeah, there's a way. It is called ammonia. Ammonia can hold the hydrogen, and it can be cracked for the hydrogen at the fueling station. No problem.

So the problem is still the cost factors. He claims that Honda will outcompete Tesla for the electric car market with their fuel cell cars. Maybe. I've not been a fan of battery powered cars, but one thing that Elon Musk has figured out is to get economies of scale going for him. By the time they get the tech figured out for fuel cells, he will own the EV market.

Anyway, here's the video...

Post modernism v Universalism

Post modernism versus Universality ( Philosophy )

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The idea for this post has been long in ferment. It seemed to me, going back as far as the early nineties, that there was something wrong with the liberal mindset. Since I was familar with certain texts, those texts didn't agree with what the lefties kept dishing out. Over the years, it has gotten worse.

The book I've referred to lately, "Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude" lists as one of its success principles the use of "universal law". For there to be universal law, there has to be a Universal philosophy. Or so I would assert here. For if there is no such thing as universals, what good is universal law? Perhaps the reason that this was in ferment so long as I did not pay much attention to this principle even though I read the book.

It seems that Postmodernism is at war with Universality. A look through the Wikipedia entries shows the inevitable conflict between the two. One or the other is wrong, they cannot both be right. That is, unless you are a Post modernist, and anything can be right, and anything can be wrong. Universality could not support such a notion. Hence to someone like me, a post modernist is just a friggin' liar. To me, someone who adheres to post modernism does so in order to facilitate their dishonesty. That goes with the majority of politicians, I might add.

So it is a real thing, this use of universal law. The absence of it can bring down a nation. That is the way it seems to me to be the case. As the radio commentator Michael Savage liked to say: "liberalism is a mental disorder". It certainly seems like it is a result of a disordered mind.

Foraging book

The book was presented as a resource that could help you identify foods that grow all around us. Maybe so, but after spending a few hours with it, I am a bit overwhelmed by the sheer number of entries to sift through to get to even ONE that I can use.

It may have been wishful thinking, but I was hoping for something that may well be non-existent. If you want to eat when the SHTF, you are going to have to prepare and prepare HARD.

This won't be easy nor fast. It may take awhile to find things. There is some wild game around here that might do in an emergency, but you have to eat some veggies too. Can't eat meat all the time.

Eventually I may want to be able to transfer that skill to parts out west if I make it out there. Yep, it is now an "if", not a "when". It is there "if" or "when" I need it, but not right now.

The book is over 300 pages long, so there's plenty of material to look at. Unfortunately, it isn't for this area exclusively. It is for the whole of North America, which is a pretty big place. Yikes.

There are other sources, but I chose this one. Argh.

Update:10.9.21

The good news and the bad news was covered initially. It gets better as you get familiar with it. There's another book I've had since 2014 on my Kindle which is similar. Correlating the two may save some time. There is yet another book on Kindle, which I haven't looked at lately. Enough material here to get a decent education, or at least I hope as much.

It's not a book that you just sit down and read. It will require some field work. Little use for it otherwise. Consequently, it may be worked in as part of a larger strategy. Might be a good idea to keep my eyes peeled for any of these plants.

The more things that can be found that are edible the better. You never know when the SHTF.

Update: 10.10.21

Guide to Wild Foods

With respect to the source of this post, it is linked directly above. I got this from an ad, so be forewarned that it is there to sell you something. Yes, I did buy it, and I've looked over the material. I cannot endorse it as of yet, but it does appear to be quite comprehensive. As a further bonus, it does have plants that have MEDICINAL attributes. If the SHTF, you may need access to medicines, but there may not be any available.

A disaster could be of natural origin, such as the Carrington Event, which missed the Earth by only 9 days in 2012.

If such an event as that had occurred, the disaster could have ruinous and possibly catastrophic. Therefore, to be prepared for an event occurring is not fear mongering. There's too much of that already, and I don't wish to add to it. Only mention it to prepare yourself if at all feasible.

It is not only true with respect to natural events, but also man-made ones. The situation in the world is precarious, but it has always been so more or less. It looks like it is the former more than the latter these days, but that seems always the be the case.

Do your own diligence with respect to what is presented out there, including this source. By all means, do get busy.

Shocking material

Made out of electrons?

Comment:

It's not exactly made of electrons, that is if I am reading it right. It traps electons between two sheets of tungsten-based compound.

Even so, it should have a negative electrical charge. That should be the case, and if it is, it might be useful for something.

In the Polywell Fusion experiment, the idea was to create a "well" of electrons. The problem with the device is that the electrons had a nasty habit of escaping. The "well" is the effect that a large number of electrons confined to one space will create a very strong attractive force for a proton, or two protons. The idea was to get them to collide and produce a fusion reaction. If you can produce the same effect with these materials, could it produce fusion?

The advantage of the Polywell is that it isn't designed to heat up. It can be relatively small.

Another thought: you can speed up protons in an accelerator and then smash them together thereby hoping for a fusion reaction which would be significant enough to produce net power. Or would an acceleration be necessary if the thing already has a very deep well? You need to overcome the coulomb barrier, which is what prevent the fusion from taking place. Anyways, it is something I was thinking about when I came across this news item.

Wild Game Cooking--- Grilling Venison

Wild Game Cooking--- Grilling Venison

Comment:

In a world gone mad, it may be necessary to re-learn the most basic things.

At least, that is what I've been doing. I need to move a bit faster, I think...

Hybrid solar farm and traditional farm

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Now here's something that might lend itself to mass production, but there are obstacles in its implementation.

The idea is to combine photovolatics with agriculture. Some crops respond well to a certain amount of shade. There is a penalty, however.

Since I'm not in business in my own off-grid project, the idea seems somewhat interesting. You could combine the solar panels with some crop production, and some climate control. It also reduces the amount of water needed, and seems to work well in arid regions.

Something to consider. You need some synergies to make all this work and be economical as well.