Harlow Got Me Going (again)

Harlow always forwards me all of this crap... having joined the email revolution later than most of us, he's still enamored with forwards! Most of it I delete, but sometimes I laugh, often I debunk the urban legend, occasionally I'm touched by military tributes or offended by the sheer stupidity and small-mindedness of propaganda, but every once in a while, there is a real gem, and this is one of them. Here's some Food for Thought, points also noted in Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat" (but condensed mightily from TWIF, thank goodness).

But I do dispute one thing in the presentation:

"We are living in Exponential Times"

We are not living in exponential times. You see, there are several way of modeling the growth that is occurring in our society, many of which look quite similar at or near the peaks of the growth rate, "Exponential" is merely the simplest one. But it cannot be the correct one because it would mean that the end result is infinity, which is physically impossible.

Remember, we are still human beings, and we require food, water, air, and shelter to survive. These things are finite. At some point the finiteness of these things will cause great suffering in humanity, and likely be the cause of the next world war, which in the nuclear age, could be much, much worse than the previous two.

Sigh... enough of a sermon for one day. The Food For Thought is not alarmist like me (merely entertaining), so check it out even if you disagree with my comments.

Berkeley-BP Deal

Should Berkeley accept $5o0 million from BP to research Biofuels? That depends on a couple of things, in my mind - are biofuels a good idea? I think there is a lot of evidence to suggest no, at least on the scale touted by many politicians and businesspeople as a pancea to solve the impeding oil crisis. On a small scale, with appropriate environmental considerations, the answer might be yes. And why is BP interested? Not to be "green" (yes to appear green). Because biofuels, especially with government subsidies, stand to be money makers. I'm not against an oil (and I should say solar) company like BP taking the lead on new technologies, but I want to make sure that these technologies are appropriate for solving the problem, and are truely green. Biofuels are failing...

Interestingly enough, some students at Berkeley have noticed, and are opposed to it! This is incredibly good news. Most Berkeleyans think the BP-Biofuels thing is good, e.g. green. I hope this opposition by students will spark much-needed debate on this subject. Check it out here: Stop BP-Berkeley

Let's get the attention of Chancellor Birgeneau.