Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Still Waiting

The season is definitely changing here. Today was hot and humid, around 85 degrees until a cool wind just moved in and it will be dry and 50 degrees tonight. September is always a fine month up here, but you cannot stop the fall from rolling in. Luckily I have ordered an acorn picker upper tool that was suggested a couple years back but I never got around to getting it. The acorns were terrible this year.

Blog Title Selection
When I make my rounds through my reading list I always wonder how the writers selected the names for their blogs. Some make sense, others not so much. I spent a solid 15 minutes coming up with the blog title Economic Disconnect a few years ago because I felt it was the perfect description of the financial world back in 2007. I guess Oblivious and Stupid would have worked, but I was trying to be more subtle.

I will look around and see if the terms "economic disconnect" get used in main stream press articles, but it is few and far in between. My friend Mark who writes The Illusion of Prosperity has had his title used often and today even by the president himself (a commenter left the link):
"The idea was that if we had blind faith in the market; if we let corporations play by their own rules; if we left everyone else to fend for themselves, America would grow and prosper.
For a time, this idea gave us the illusion of prosperity. We saw financial firms and CEOs take in record profits and record bonuses. We saw a housing boom that led to new homeowners and new jobs in construction. Consumers bought more condos and bigger cars and better televisions.
But while all this was happening, the broader economy was becoming weaker."
Epic WIN! For another see here.

Electric Cars need to Make Noise
I do not want to get into some environmental (air pollution or sound pollution or any other) debate here. What I did want to talk about is how deadly silent electric cars and hybrids are when they are on full battery. I mean, you can barely make anything out! It is a little creepy. I find this an issue in the crazy cramped streets of Cambridge when I need to take a turn and because there are so many cars (all SUV's, just what one would expect from city dwelling liberal hippie hypocrites by the way) parked all over the place you cannot see around corners.

What I do is try and see the best I can, and I roll down the window to listen for a car. These dang things make no noise! No real close calls as yet, but I do think about it. The following article offers a solution:
ECTunes solves silent electric vehicle "problem" with directional noise system
They bring up some other points about car noise. I am all for this!

Still Waiting
I guess with a market that seems to do the most it can to frustrate the most amount of players I should not have been surprised by this week so far. I thought we would see some direction or larger volume but nothing but the same old market. Up one day big, down the next all at the open. One day the Irish banks will crash the system, the next they make loans to themselves in a show of liquidity and all is well. I am still waiting for something to happen.

We did get more baby stimulus ideas from the president today, but any infrastructure spending will not create jobs but will be used by the states to pay their own existing employees to do more wasteful work. At 50 Billion, that is not even a rounding error anymore.

For some reading material for a slow middle of the week, I offer:

Nanowire Coated Cotton Cleans Water by Zapping Bacteria to Death
Illness-inducing bacteria, meet nano-engineered cotton–and a quick death. Researchers have created a new “filter” that zaps bacteria with electric fields to clean drinking water. They say their system may find use in developing countries since it requires only a small amount of voltage (a couple of car batteries, a stationary bike, or a solar panel could do the job) and cleans water an estimated 80,000 times faster than traditional devices.

Instead of trapping bacteria in small pores like many slow-going traditional filters, the cotton and silver nanowire combo uses small electric currents running through the nanowires to kill the bacteria outright. In a paper to appear in the journal Nano Letters researchers say that 20 volts and 2.5 inches worth of the material killed 98 percent of Escherichia coli in the water they tested in their lab setup.

The authors argue that the filter’s silver nanowires and carbon nanotubes are cheap; the small amount of silver required makes its expense “negligible,” coauthor Yi Cui says in a press release, and the group chose to use cotton because of its abundance.
And it is not robotic! Seriously, some argue the next war will be fought over water and not much water purification work has been done using the newer technologies....yet.

Making Plastics out of Switchgrass Plants
Metabolix Inc. Creates a 100% Biodegradable Plastic

This is a local company that has made strides using natural products for polymer science. For more color you can try out this review paper:
Advances in the synthesis and extraction of biodegradable polyhydroxyalkanoates in plant systems – A review
NOTE: No position or affiliation with the companies or technology listed. I hold physical silver and a paper position in SLV.

Rich exoplanet system discovered
These new finds are tantalizing!

At long last, we find out what exactly the cargo was that Han Solo had to dump that got him in all the trouble with Jabba the Hutt. Skip towards end for the hilarious finish. Ah yes, Darth Sidious never fails to settle a score.

Have a good night.

9 comments:

Stagflationary Mark said...

It brings a tear to my eye to be quoted by our president in his finest hour! This is a real tear-jerker.

I can't wait for the elections. Can't you just see Obama quoting My Dog Skip too?

au soleil levant said...

Wow, I love the water purifier system! How cool!

CT-Hilltopper said...

Don't get me started about Oblahma!

Just don't!

Is it too late for a request for Friday night? If not, I have one.

I'd like to request "Anna Begins" from Counting Crows.

Unless Counting Crows have been banned like the band that shall be nameless... LOL

CT-Hilltopper said...

BTW... I wasn't aware that Oblahma had any "finest hours". I must have missed them.

Could someone bring me up to date? Did he create world peace? Cure cancer? Come back from one of his endless vacations? Fire his annoying and idiotic press secretary?

Or perhaps he just quit and turned the job over to someone competent!

Tell all!

watchtower said...

You're right GYSC, traffic must be rough up there in the Northeast.

Even your football legends are not immune it seems:

Brady emerges from car accident 'shaken', not seriously injured

"As radio station WEEI first reported, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady(notes) was involved in a car accident Thursday morning in downtown Boston."

http://tinyurl.com/34ewq5q

GawainsGhost said...

Football begins in reality tonight, with your beloved Saints taking on the bedamned Vikings. Of course, for me, the season doesn't begin until the Cowboys take the field against the hated Redskins on Sunday night. But that's beside the point.

In honor of opening weekend, my request for Friday Night Entertainment is an obvious one. The Band, "Don't Do It."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11Y987Uf1wY

Lurker said...

My Friday night music pick is "Please Come to Boston" by Kenny Loggins.

Lurker said...

I meant Dave Loggins. Sorry.

EconomicDisconnect said...

I saw all the comments, but just posted a new blog!