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laodan

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laodan is a guy from Milford, Pennsylvania, USA

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THE WAY THINGS ARE: The meaning of life is to be found in thinking about what is reality and the beauty of reality is to be found in our DNA's memorization of all forms that have been successfully retained along the four billion years of evolution of the principle of life on Gaia our earth. In the end what I mean to say is that beauty is something objective and what we call ugliness is then simply our unconscientious feel of something evolution did not retain.
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  • Technology Trends - How new technologies are modifying...

    Rated Dec 27 2008 • 2 reviews • environment, energy industry, energy, economy • primidi.com

    Is the LED revolution coming?
    in Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends

    According to two professors at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and smart lighting could save trillions of dollars worldwide in the next ten years. They claim that innovations in photonics and solid state lighting could also lead to 'a massive reduction in the amount of energy required to light homes and businesses around the globe.

    The team added that LEDs require 20 times less power than today's conventional light bulbs, and five times less power than 'green' compact fluorescent bulbs. According to them and "if all of the world's light bulbs were replaced with LEDs for a period of 10 years," we could save $1.83 trillion and reduce our carbon dioxide emissions by 10.68 gigatons.

    Is the LED revolution coming?
    Transcending the replacement paradigm of solid-state lighting 8 pages pdf scientific presentation.



    From passive architecture to LEDs.
    What is not mentioned here is that China is already well ahead of the pack in the field of LEDs.




    68 views
    Technology Trends - How new technologies are modifying our way of life

  • The Energy Challenge - No Furnaces but Heat Aplenty in...

    Rated Dec 27 2008 • 1 review • environment, science, energy, economy • nytimes.com

    No Furnaces but Heat Aplenty in 'Passive Houses'
    in the NYT by ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

    The concept of the passive house, pioneered in this city of 140,000 outside Frankfurt, approaches the challenge from a different angle. Using ultrathick insulation and complex doors and windows, the architect engineers a home encased in an airtight shell, so that barely any heat escapes and barely any cold seeps in. That means a passive house can be warmed not only by the sun, but also by the heat from appliances and even from occupants' bodies.

    And in Germany, passive houses cost only about 5 to 7 percent more to build than conventional houses.

    ... The European Commission is promoting passive-house building, and the European Parliament has proposed that new buildings meet passive-house standards by 2011.

    ... The courses and literature were mostly in German, and even now the components are mass-produced only in this part of the world.

    No Furnaces but Heat Aplenty in 'Passive Houses"
    Passive House Institute



    Is there an impact on the technological approach of countries that have green parties in power for prolonged periods of time? This article covers an anecdote that seems to indicate just that.
    Germany had a green party in power for some years and because of the popularity of its ideas all other parties have been integrating the same ideas in their own platforms. This also explains how innovation and entrepreneurialism thrived along the same lines.
    Result: Germany today is the uncontested world leader in:
    - passive building technologies
    - solar and wind technologies
    - the manufacturing and application of those technologies in real life.

    What more needs to be said?
    Imagine the application of such passive technologies generalized in a country as the US. The result would be a drastic reduction of its national energy consumption, a drastic reduction of its energy imports that eventually would result in its balance of payment entering positive territory, If the country had mastered the technology before others it would also have an export opportunity that would result in pushing its balance of payment further into positive territory. And lastly a reduction on the scale that passive technologies could allow would also drastically reduce the emission of CO2 and other gases responsible for the present man induced climate change.

    We can only observe that such a scenario did not originate in the US but in the countries composing the Germanic area of the EU. So it seems to me that some conclusions...




    5 views
    The Energy Challenge - No Furnaces but Heat Aplenty in Innovative ‘Passive Houses’ - Series - NYTimes.com

  • Truthdig - Reports - The Best and the Brightest Led...

    Rated Dec 08 2008 • 8 reviews • education, economy, finance, change • truthdig.com

    The Best and the Brightest Led America Off a Cliff
    in Truthdig by Chris Hedges

    These elites, and the corporate system they serve, have ruined the country. These elite cannot solve our problems. They have been trained to find "solutions" such as the trillion-dollar bailout of banks and financial firms, that sustain the system. They will feed the beast until it dies. Don't expect them to save us. They don't know how. And when it all collapses, when our rotten financial system with its trillions in worthless assets implodes and our imperial wars end in humiliation and defeat, they will be exposed as being as helpless, and as stupid, as the rest of us.

    The Best and the Brightest Led America Off a Cliff
    Workers' Revolution in America: Approaching Zero Hour

    I like Chris Hedges. The guy has balls.

    It seems indeed that popular anger is fast increasing. Yesterday I posted about Nassim Nicholas Taleb who speaks about the robbery of the century by the financial elite and the need for shaming them into retreat. Today it's Chris Hedges' turn to express his disdain for those guys who are said to be the brightest. Mc Camy Taylor might well be onto something real with his idea of an approaching hour zero in America.

    Robert Reich writes that "This is the angry soil in which populist backlashes can take root."




    321 views
    Truthdig - Reports - The Best and the Brightest Led America Off a Cliff

  • Computerworld & Open source 3D printer copies itself

    Rated Apr 08 2008 • 8 reviews • open source, economy, freetools • computerworld.co.nz

    Open source 3D printer copies itself
    via kurzweilai.net, in ComputerWorld by Ulrika Hedquist

    Based in the Waitakeres, in West Auckland, software developer and artist Vik Olliver is part of a team developing an open-source, self-copying 3D printer. The RepRap (Replicating Rapid-prototyper) printer can replicate and update itself. It can print its own parts, including updates, says Olliver, who is one of the core members of the RepRap team.

    Open source 3D printer copies itself



    Great. Open Source goes to Open Production.
    This is an initiative that should be given wide diffusion.




    3,599 views
    Computerworld & Open source 3D printer copies itself

  • Asia Times Online :: Asian news and current affairs

    Rated Feb 12 2008 • 1 review • economics, economy, collapse, finance • atimes.com

    Financial models head for scrap heap
    in AsiaTimes by Martin Hutchinson

    It is now clear that the credit crunch was not due simply to bull market over-optimism, but resulted very largely from the failures of a number of the financial models that have been a staple of the last generation.
    ...
    ... the subprime mortgage is simply a scam, and the market a giant Ponzi scheme that could survive only as long as more people entered into subprime mortgage contracts, keeping house prices high and mortgage brokers active.

    ...it becomes obvious that the financial system of the future will look very different from that of the recent past.
    ...
    The percentage of financeu2019s value added in the US and world economy will shrink once again, close to the levels of the 1970s and 1980s, around half those of today, and remuneration for bankers, traders and salesmen will be correspondingly more restricted.
    ...
    Eventually, perhaps not before 2030, another financial revolution, immensely profitable to its participants, will begin. It is undoubtedly the case however that the new revolution will involve products and sales methodologies far different from those of recent decades.

    Financial models head for scrap heap

    Wow!

    So much for the wealth generated these last 20 years. It has been, at best, an illusion and, at worst, a scam. But there is a huge difference between illusion and scam. If it was an illusion we can conceive that the actors in the financial game were not really responsible. If it was a scam the actors in the financial game should undoubtedly be penalized and the least that would be expected from them is to return the high incomes they generated during those years of scamming...

    But who will be the judge?




    195 views
    Asia Times Online :: Asian news and current affairs

  • The Archdruid Report: Back Up The Rabbit Hole

    Rated Feb 07 2008 • 1 review • environment, economy • blogspot.com

    Back Up The Rabbit Hole
    in The Archdruid Report by John Michael Greer

    As the world closes in on the end of the 21st century's first decade, its industrial societies are leaving behind a period in which just such a temporary set of conditions held sway. Until we recognize the blind alley down which those conditions led the developed world, we will be hard put to respond to a future that has begun to move in a very different direction.
    ...
    During the quarter century of ultracheap energy, transportation costs were so low that they became a negligible fraction of the cost of goods. This allowed manufacturers to arbitrage the difference in labor costs between industrial and nonindustrial countries without having to take shipping costs into account.
    ...
    Another result, at least as dramatic as globalization though less ballyhooed then or now, was the rise of a throwaway economy all through the industrial world.

    In hindsight, I suspect, the entire period from 1980 to 2005 will be seen as one of history's supreme blind alleys.
    ...
    The possibility that the only way forward out of the present blind alley may require going back to less convenient and more costly ways of doing things is nowhere on our collective radar screens just now.

    Back Up The Rabbit Hole

    This idea of progress as being the direction forward on the line of history is typically a story derived out of the religions of the word. This is nowhere to be seen in China and the greater Confucian area nor in any area where animism is still in practice.

    The Western idea of progress starts with the religions of the word being imposed on all citizens as the societal glue of early kingdoms and empires. That moment is also considered to be the beginning of Western civilization moment that Toynbee spent his life studying.

    Civilization is like a house. The FOUNDATIONS OF CIVILIZATION are not made of bricks but of AXIOMS of a model of perception of reality that is shared by all the citizens. Culture, understood as epochal behavior within society, is then added to the axioms to grow the house of civilization. Each particular snapshot of epochal behavior acts thus like a CULTURAL ADD-ON. A civilization is then the sum of its axioms + its cultural add-ons.

    So how do the axioms of our Western and Christian civilization compare with the axioms of the Chinese civilization? It's the story of dualism in the West versus the polarities of unity in China.
    - dualism: God versus devil, beginning versus end, good versus evil, love versus hate, "you are with us or you are against us", progress versus regress, and so on. Under dualism it is implied that you are on the side of God and good and that the road of history is made of progress. The logical behavior in such an axiomatic setting is thus to believe that everything is fine because we are on the road of progress towards reaching God (ultimate good). As a consequence Westerners experience an utter inability to recognize reality as it is and tend to reject the idea that what they do could be wrong, or even less, counterproductive to their own interests.
    - polarities of unity: the contact between polarities generates a burst of energy fueling changes and transformations that are as the seconds on the ticking clock of evolution. In that axiomatic setting there is no beginning and end, no all and nothing, no progress and regress. Reality is perceived indeed as a continuum of change. And the logical behavior is then to surf on the realities of the moment in order to position oneself to be able to size the best opportunities at hand in the present.

    In light of this I'm afraid that John's assertion that "The challenge before us now is to climb back out of the rabbit hole and deal with the world we will have to face when the extravagant Wonderland of the brief era of ultra-cheap energy dissolves into windblown leaves and the shreds of a departed dream" is wishful thinking, for, as Toynbee observed (in a Western civilizational environment) it's NECESSITY that powers change and not the willpower of men.




    4 views
    The Archdruid Report: Back Up The Rabbit Hole

  • DNA Is Blueprint, Contractor And Construction Worker For...

    Rated Feb 04 2008 • 3 reviews • science, economy • sciencedaily.com

    DNA Is Blueprint, Contractor And Construction Worker For New Structures
    via KurzweilAI, in ScienceDaily from adapted materials provided by Northwestern University in EurekAlert

    DNA is the blueprint of all life, giving instruction and function to organisms ranging from simple one-celled bacteria to complex human beings. Now Northwestern University researchers report they have used DNA as the blueprint, contractor and construction worker to build a three-dimensional structure out of gold, a lifeless material.
    ...
    By changing the type of DNA on the surface of the particles, the Northwestern team can get the particles to arrange differently in space. The structures that finally form are the ones that maximize DNA hybridization. DNA is the stabilizing force, the glue that holds the structure together. "These structures are a new form of matter," said Mirkin, "that would be difficult, if not impossible, to make any other way."
    ...
    "Once you get good at this you can build anything you want," said Mirkin, director of Northwestern's International Institute for Nanotechnology.

    "The rules that govern self-assembly are not known, however," said Schatz, "and determining how to combine nanoparticles into interesting structures is one of the big challenges of the field."

    DNA Is Blueprint, Contractor And Construction Worker For New Structures


    Computer rendition of a structure created by using DNA to assemble nanoparticles into well-defined crystal lattices. (Credit: Northwestern University)

    Letting biology, or better nano-bilology, work for us.
    This work done at Northwestern University colors the future in more livable tones. Imagine what a potential this work could unleash indeed!




    231 views
    DNA Is Blueprint, Contractor And Construction Worker For New Structures

  • The Oil Drum | Mexico: A Nation-State Dissolves?

    Rated Jul 12 2007 • 1 review • mexico, geo politics, economy, globalization, change • theoildrum.com

    Mexico: A Nation-State Dissolves?
    in The Oil Drum by Jeff Vail.

    In my annual new years predictions, I said that the most significant, and surprising, development of 2007 would be the collapse of both Mexico's economy and its very existence as a viable Nation-State. While there hasn't been a spectacular, single event confirming my prediction, there has been a steady erosion on all fronts with five months left in the year, I'm not yet willing to push back my prediction of Mexico's "collapse" to 2008. The decline of the Mexican Nation-State is a bellwether for the massively complex network of geopolitical influences sometimes termed above ground factors. It provides some insight into how symptoms of oil scarcity already being felt in poorer parts of the world will increasingly spill over into our own back yard.

    Mexico: A Nation-State Dissolves?
    The New Map: Terrorism and the Decline of the Nation-State in a Post-Cartesian World A 24 pages PDF by Jeff Vail

    Mexico's Oil Production is already Collapsing


    I'm back from abroad and discover this prediction about Mexico from Jeff Vail. Hum...

    Societal change is undeniably accelerating around the world. I just come back from Belgium where the collapse of the federal state appears also to nearing fast.

    We are assisting at the early stages of a global geo-political re-balancing and this takes the form of societal changes at the level of the nation-states... I guess the next big step in this process shall be the US stumbling into a muddle-through recession that will consecrate the EU and China as central pillars of the new world order...




    17 views
    The Oil Drum | Mexico: A Nation-State Dissolves?

  • http://news.com.com/2300-11392_3-6186860-1.html?tag=ne.ga...

    Rated May 30 2007 • 2 reviews • environment, economy • news.com.com

    The green view from Beijing
    from diverse sources

    in the capital, Beijing, plans are well advanced to use renewable energy for a big chunk of the city's power needs by the time it hosts what China is billing as the first "green" Olympics in 2008. Beijing intends to build a "solar street" where buildings and streetlights will run entirely on energy from the sun. To be green is to be hip in China these days, and even the government is taking note.

    The green view from Beijing a slideshow of Chinese innovations
    China Solar Energy Blog Dong Wang's blog
    China's Solar-Powered City by Xuemei Bai in Renewal EnergyAccess. Read also the comments.
    Overview of Solar Energy in China 2006
    Major Solar Module Suppliers in China
    China Power to spend US$4b on renewable energy
    The quest for clean energy: China's green revolution



    Is it grass? Is it concrete? No, it's Grasscrete, an environmentally sustainable alternative paving system used to create footpaths while leaving room for greenery. It will be part of Olympic Forest Park in northern Beijing, a multimillion-dollar, 680-hectare space being built for next year's Olympic Games.

    I guess one day the West shall awake from its arrogance and discover the big leap forward gained by other countries in the meantime...




    443 views
    http://news.com.com/2300-11392_3-6186860-1.html?tag=ne.gall.pg

  • Econbrowser: The distribution of world income

    Rated Jan 14 2007 • 17 reviews • economics, economy, history, politics • econbrowser.com

    The distribution of world income
    via jonson / Metafilter, in Econbrowser by James Hamilton

    One of the most profound questions in economics is why are some countries rich and others poor?

    A paper by John Gallup, Jeffrey Sachs and Andrew Mellinger in the International Regional Science Review in 1999 introduced the concept of "GDP density", calculated by multiplying GDP per capita by the number of people per square kilometer. Basically GDP density is a measure of the total amount of economic activity that takes place at different spots on our globe. I found the map they produced quite fascinating:

    The distribution of world income
    A paper by John Gallup, Jeffrey Sachs and Andrew Mellinger in the International Regional Science Review 56 pages PDF.
    how much of a difference institutions can make
    A conceptual framework 64 pages PDF.




    Not surprisingly, it looks a whole lot like those satellite pictures of the earth at night


    This subject is of the utmost interest and the graphs are enlightening. But I think that the studies mentioned here above are not the best material available. Better see Fernand Braudel and his seminal work on the emergence of capitalism.




    16K views
    Econbrowser: The distribution of world income