Quotes from the Inaugural Speech...

I was just reading through the Presidents speech, and the following few paragraphs caught my attention, so I wanted to share them. I think they bear repeating.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious
and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of
time. But know this America: They will be met.

...

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends -- honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism -- these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history.
~ President Barack H. Obama, January 20, 2009

Thinking about "Power"

I was reading an article in the Seattle Times about harnessing the power of tidal energy to generate electricity this morning and had a sudden flash of realization. Let me begin by saying that I'm by no means perfect. I'm sitting here in my car that gets an average of about 27MPG, waiting for the beginning of a group drive in which about 20-30 cars are going to run hard for 100 miles or so. So I say again, I'm by no means perfect...

The thing that I realized this moring was that in all our interest in "Green Power" what we really want is "more power, just cleaner". I keep reading about all of these various new energy schemes, ways to harness energy without burning oil, hybrid powered vehicles, and the like. What I don't seem to see very much is any technologies that are substantially reducing the amount of energy being used.

A few years ago, the first really big way to save energy for a long time was introduced: the compact fourescent bulb. It has some issues, based on the technology, but under many situations can show a great deal os energy savings. We need more of this type of advance. Things that use less energy in everyday use.

Laptops are a good example of energy saving devices compared to a full desktop system. For most users, a basic middle tier laptop has more than enough horsepower to anything that user would need. But, of course, every user wants the latest, fastest processor, video card, and the biggest screen they can get. All that power uses a lot of energy, converting quite a bit into heat in the process.

I remember reading something in the last couple years about how large office buildings no longer are concerned so much with being able to heat the spaces, but to effectively keep them cool. They expend great amounts of energy on cooling the interiors, why hasn't someone thought of a way to harness all thay energy?

In the article I was reading this morning, they are now setting their sites on harnessing wave power. I wonder what kind of effect this is going to have on the already slightly stressed ocean environment?

Even Scott Adams (Dilbert) in his blog states that green energy is one of the highest priority tasks for our society. However, he also states it as such: "... coming up with green and economical alternative sources of energy would virtually solve all the other problems, either directly or by boosting the economy." I again have to say that coming up with alternative sources doesn't do much. We really need to alter our framework and focus on reducing the amount of energy that we (waste)/use in our daily life.

Edit: Here's what I posted to Scott's blog...
Which is more important to the long term health of the planet? Finding a way to replace the current energy sources, or finding ways of reducing the amount of energy we use in our everyday lives?

Think of it this way: If we keep using the same basic oh, call it an "energy signature" regardless of the source, our needs will increase continuously along with our population. However, if we can find more ways of conserving energy (by creating devices that perform the same or nearly the same with a lower "signature") then we can reduce the overall impact on the planet.

Another cause to rally around

Over the last 7 or 8 years, I have repeatedly come back to listening to a couple of favorite internet radio stations. These are stations that instead of broadcasting over the radio waves have been streaming music through the internet.

I first started listening when I was working at Mohawk Northern Plastics. Back in the late 90's, there weren't many options, but there was Soma FM's Groove Salad. Then when I was working at AccessLine in 2000, I started listening again. I stopped for a while, listening only occasionally over the last few years. I've found myself back to listening to it again, and have recently learned that it is getting more and more difficult for them to continue to broadcast due to the greediness of the record companies.

The record companies are now trying to enforce the internet radio stations to pay royalties on a per-play basis. The regular radio stations still get to play everything for free. The Satellite companies (Sirius and XM) each currently pay a percentage (that is still extremely expensive). But the record companies think that the internet outfits (usually some geeks - no offense intended, I am one - in a spare room) to pay on a per-play basis...

I encourage you to visit http://www.savenetradio.org to learn more, and to contact your local representation in support of this alternative to the broadcast spectrum.

I know I'll be making some extra phone calls to try and save one of my favorite access points to music that I otherwise can't find.