Muse : noun

think, ponder, meditate, ruminate

Pauldos! Musings

My Musings :

my thoughts, ponderings, and lunatic rants.
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It's worse than we thought...
Posted by Pauldos! on 13/04/2010

That was the exact words that some scientist said in the news today. The news article was in reference to the re-floating of the Shen Neng 1, a bulk carrier ship which ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef. The scientist was talking about the damage to the reef.

Fuck I am sick of that phrase. It seems to be the 'phrase-de-jour' of anyone talking about how much damage we are doing to the planet. Catastrophes happen. If it wasn't a ship damaging the reef, it would be a cyclone next week.

I've had enough. I am issuing a decree. From this moment forward, any scientist who uses the phrase 'it's worse than we thought', is an utter, utter, utter, utter, utter, utter FUCKWIT.

And on the braod subject of the environment and people -
We have a genetic imperative to procreate, to ensure the continuation of the species. We are genetically programmed to love our children, and to do what it takes to see them achieve self sufficiency. This is Darwin's theory. I am a great fan of Darwin. That biological imperitive, however, does not extend to preserving the environment for future generations (just take a look at our collective behaviour). We don't care about future generations, only us and our children. Preserving the Great Barrier Reef is not to our direct benefit, and not to the direct benefit of our own children. Therefore it not selected for.
It is on this basis that I believe that anyone who thinks that we need to preserve the reef (or any other microcosm) for future generations, is genetically defective.

Mankind will be a small blip in the history of this planet. Any damage we do will be repaired quite soon after we have gone. This planet has been decimated a dozen times over before we even got here, and it's still beautiful. It will still be beautiful long after we have gone. Who gives a fuck about one square kilometre of reef.




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The end of the world - Redux.
Posted by Pauldos! on 18/11/2009

Well, as followers of the LHC will know, the LHC blew up at turn-on last year. The planet Earth was spared armageddon. But wait - they've fixed the doomsday machine and are ready to take another crack at destoying the universe, or conducting complex scientific experiments. I can never remember which it is they are trying to do.

Anyway, we now have a new date for the end of the world. Friday the twentieth of November. Tomorrow. So if you have anything you wanted to do before you die, better get on it - time is shorter than you think. Of course, the world may not disappear into Sweden's anus tomorrow, so don't do anything too radical.

Me, I'm a man of simple pleasures - food and sex. But I am hoping that if the world really does implode, it's shown on television. I'll be following events closely with my feet up and a box of microwave popcorn in my lap.


A spectacular end for a species that is not as smart as it thinks it is.

On 16/12/2009, cooter had this to add -
Ow crap, we are still here. Ow well, back to bed ;)

On 16/12/2009, Pauldos had this to add -
Indeed. I am now searching for my next armageddon-of-the-month.

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1993 Toyota Camry Ignition Problems
Posted by Pauldos! on 21/05/2009

My car has been having problems the past six months. The engine dies sometime within the first 2 minutes of start-up from cold, and won't re-start for anywhere between two and thirty seconds. Once the engine has been running for three minutes, it will run all day without fault until it cools down. Another curious phenomenon is that ever since this fault first appeared, the tacho has been reading low, mostly about half of what it is supposed to be reading, but sometimes a tenth of what it should be. This morning the car died shortly after starting up and refused to re-start, so I decided it was time to tackle the problem with all my skills. As I was not feeling very well, and the fault was now more-or-less permanent, it was a perfect excuse to call into work sick and dedicate the day to fixing the car. Before I get into this story, a breif rundown of why I believe I can fix this problem.

Before I worked where I am now, I worked for a company called 'Austhire Electronics', which later changed it's name to 'Almac Electronics'. The business involved repairing electronic fuel injection systems. It was a privelige to work with some brilliant people, including Lachlan Riddel, who went on to start up his own company called 'Chiptorque', also an electronic fuel injection business. When I was working at Austhire, my speciality was electronic ignition.

So, back to this morning.

The first place to start was to ask the computer (the engine management system, that is) if it knew what the problem was. I hit the internet, and got the instructions to put the computer into diagnostic mode. With the instructions in hand, I went out to the car and jumpered the indicated pins in the diagnostic connector. The computer coughed up the error code '14'. Back on the internet, I found out that the code meant 'ignition signal fom distributor not present'. I made phone calls to two Toyota Service Centers and to Ultra-Tune. They all said the same thing - it could be ignition coil, igniter, distributor, crank-angle-sensor, or the computer. All said that they would tackle the problem by replacing modules until the problem went away. I can't afford that, and I don't think it is a reliable diagnostic method either.

So, back to the internet, where I downloaded a wiring diagram for the car. Once printed out, I headed back out to the car and checked that there was power to the igniter and coil, that the wiring of the ignition system was intact, and that all the connectors were clean and tight. I checked that the coil had continuity in both the primary and secondary windings. All was good. Time to bring out the CRO. I ran an extension lead out to the car and plugged the CRO in, and connected it to the coil output of the igniter. I cranked the engine with my remote control, but there was no signal. The igniter was not switching the negative of the ignition coil. I probed the signal input pin of the igniter, and the signal from the computer was present, and looked like what I expected to see.

OK, so it's the igniter. A phone call to Toyota Spare Parts and the guy on the phone asked me if I was sitting down. A new igniter is over five hundred dollars. Fuck that, I don't have that sort of money, the car will rot in the yard and I'll be on the bus unless I can come up with something else. I removed the igniter module from the car and took it up to my workshop. I figured that I might be able to repair it, or perhaps reverse-engineer it and build a replacement. There was a single screw holding the cover on the igniter and I removed the cover. Damn, it's potted. It is common to 'pot' automotive electronics - that is, to fill it with epoxy resin or some other compound to keep out moisture and corrosion. It also makes it unrepairable. But wait, the potting mixture looked soft. I was able to dig a screwdriver into the potting compound, so I put the igniter module in the oven and set it to 120 degrees celcius.

After half-an-hour, I removed the module from the oven and started digging at the potting compound. It came away easily, revealing a ceramic-substrate printed-circuit-board. As I was digging away, a small blob of solder came out with the potting compound. Did I damage a component? Has something got hot enough that it 'bled' from one of the solder joints? Inspecting all the large solder joints, I discovered that the ground strap didn't look right. The ground strap is a metal bar connected to the frame of the igniter module, leading to a solder pad which leads to the emitter of the main switching power transistor. I observed the solder joint with a high-power magnifying glass while I flexed the ground strap. There it was, clearly a dry joint. Bingo. I re-soldered the joint, and padded the track with solder all the way to the power transitor.

I put the cover back on the module, and fitted it back in the car. I cranked the engine and it started on the first cylinder to fire, and ran for twenty minutes. WOO-HOO!!

The iginter module is now back in the car, and I'll be back to work tomorrow. With the potting compound gone, the circuit-board of the igniter module is now exposed to environmental damage, so I will have to take it back out soon and re-pot it. When I do that, I will reverse engineer it and publish the schematic here, so that others may be able to build a replacement. Given the price of these igniters, I might even manufacture replacement modules and sell them on my site. If I can save someone from being extorted of $500, it will be worth it.

Oh, by the way, the tacho is still reading low, so the story may not be over yet.

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Earth Hour Again - Still a waste of time.
Posted by Pauldos! on 26/03/2009

Here we go again, with this new ludicrous annual ritual. Last year I declared that this event was a complete waste of time. I now realise that I was wrong. This event is not a waste of time, it's a complete debacle. As I stated in the previous entry on this subject, any attempt to deal with these issues on a large scale only makes things worse. Organising large groups of people uses resources, which is to say it uses energy. Which produces carbon dioxide, as all those organisers run around printing propaganda materials, making phone calls, and distributing 'kits'.

But wait... it gets worse. Earth hour is NOT reducing carbon emissions, it is actually increasing them. It's mostly the candles. Candles emit about fifty times as much carbon dioxide as a light bulb. Every candle you light is far more destructive to the planet than leaving the lights on. Then there's the parties, the concerts, the propaganda. The hypocrisy makes me want to vomit.

Even the Earth Hour organisers don't give a shit about carbon emissions. Look right there on their 'Take Action' page, where it says 'Show us what to do in the dark during Earth Hour - video by candlelight'. What hypocrites.

The Australian tells more of the story - and tells it like it is,
It's like the band playing on as the Titanic sinks. -

I'm not the only one who thinks that Earth Hour stinks -

I urge you, don't recognise Earth Hour, it only makes the problem worse, and makes you a hypocrite. The Earth is doomed anyway.


Save the Earth, light a candle. Fuck it, light a hundred.

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Georgia is about Iran, not Russia.
Posted by Pauldos! on 05/09/2008

There have been numerous analysts pondering exactly what the little war between Georgia and Russia was all about, and who was secretly behind it, and why. A lot of these are pure speculation, such as PM Putin's theory that it was instigated by the US Republicans to enhance John McCain's presidential bid. That is a true conspiracy theory. Plausible but unprovable. Most of these analysts adamantly state that the US must have known that Saakashvili was going to attack South Ossetia, because the US had military advisers - a lot of them - stationed in Georgia at the time. Some say that these military advisers had a hand in preparing for, and engaging in, the attack.

The trouble with this, for me, is the question : why? The US is bogged down in two hopeless wars in the Middle East, and wants to create a third by attacking Iran. They know that an attack on South Osettia would prompt a response from the Russians, so why would they risk getting involved with a piss-ant country's war against a major power?

Not wanting to be left out of the rumour mill, I have a theory of my own. It is about oil, but not Russia trying to control oil, but America trying to control oil. And not Eurasion oil, Middle East Oil. It dawned on me when I was reading this article , where French president Nicolas Sarkozy warns Iran that it may be attacked by Israel.

I have believed for some time, as many others have, that America is going to attack Iran no matter what it says or does. The Americans attacked Saddam Hussein even though he co-operated with the nuclear inspection team, and Hans Blix and the IAEA said that Hussein did not have any weapons of mass destruction. The only sticking point has been that Russia and China have been agreeing to the sanctions that the Americans have been ramming up the UN's ass. This was not in the plan. The US was expecting that either Russia or China would not agree to sanctions, and that would give the Americans the pretext to form a new 'coalition of the willing' (US and Israel) and launch an attack.

It is my postulation that America goaded the Georgians into going to war with the Russians, and then America could blame the Russians and heap shit on them, pissing them right off, and alienate them at the UN. Ergo the Russians would not go along with any new sanctions against Iran (or anything else the Americans wanted), and the Americans are then free to throw their hands in the air and say "Well, we tried the diplomatic thingy, now it's time to bust the furniture.". Once Iran is subdued, all the Middle East's oil is Americas for the taking.

I'm Kent Brockman, and that's my two cents worth...

Update 14/09/2008
Looks like I'm right.
"With the new tensions with Russia over Georgia lessening the prospects for fresh "multilateral" Iran diplomacy at the United Nations this autumn, the White House has now begun a new chapter in coercive, unilateral action against Iran that may well be part of a comprehensive "package approach". This could include the interdiction of Iranian ships on the high seas and even incremental steps toward imposing a regime of "smart blockade" aimed at denying Iran access to badly needed imported fuel."




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The Date for the End of the World has been Set.
Posted by Pauldos! on 31/08/2008

Yep. Here is another one of my doomsday predictions. My family is used to my incessant ravings about the end of the world. They ignore my dire predictions because they love me, and of course, pity me. I don't know why I have become obsessed with all the things that could go wrong on planet earth, but my family tells me that I read too much news. It's true that historically, mankind has muddled through many potential disasters. We lived through the cold war didn't we? Although Russia and the US are trying to revive it.

Anyway, on to today's armageddon-of-the-month.

A story I have been following for a few years now is the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It is Europe's latest - and biggest - particle accelerator. It is designed to conduct experiments in physics by smashing two particles together at nearly the speed of light. It is supposed to reveal some of the workings of the universe by observing what material is given off when these particles collide. Some of the most respected physicists have warned that there could be a different outcome. If the particles do not break up as predicted, they will fuse together and form a super-dense particle. A black hole. If you know anything about black holes, then you know that they are something that is to be avoided.

A little background on a black hole is in order. Anything that has mass (weight) has gravity. The bigger the mass, the stronger the gravity. We can leave our planet Earth because it's mass is small, and it's gravity is not too strong. We would be crushed flat on Jupiter. If a planet's - or object's - mass started increasing by sucking in passing objects and planets, it would eventually have gravity so strong that even light could not escape. Thus the term 'black hole'. The objects own mass would be crushed under it's own gravity, and if our sun were to be dragged in, it would be crushed to the size of the head of a pin, while still retaining it's original gravity. Scary, huh?

If the LHC does create a miniature black hole, it will start sucking in matter from all around it. As it sucks in matter, it will grow faster and faster, until the whole planet becomes a black hole, crushed to the size of a molecule. The scientists that have warned of this possibility say that the process would take only hundredths of a second, and stop there, leaving a mini black hole orbiting the sun. Passing aliens would see the little black hole and know exactly what happened, and laugh out loud.

The scientists that will be conducting these experiments have now finished testing of the LHC, and set a date for the first experiment. September 10th, 2008. If we are still here on September 11th, they'll probably start designing a bigger one.

Read more about it here.
LHC Home Page.




Update - 04-09-2008
I have just received an invitation to renew my subscription to 'Cosmos' magazine. Ironically the invitation expires on Sept 10th.


The Earth will disappear down this hole.

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Back -the Fuck- Off China!
Posted by Pauldos! on 03/08/2008

There has been a media frenzy about China's restriction of internet access for journalists during the Olympic Games. They complain that they cannot access websites related to the Falun-Gong, Tibet, Taiwan, and Amnesty International, as well as a score of other websites that are critical of China and her domestic policies. Some pretty harsh words have been used, and very nasty name-calling has been used by journalists who should know better. So much for objective journalism. And exactly what do these websites have to do with the Olympic Games anyway? Fuck-all, that's what. It seems to me that these journalists are just using the internet filter as yet another excuse to do some China-bashing, just like the atrocious one-sided reporting on the Tibet riots. Some journalists have even likened the Chinese government's internet restrictions to Hitler's Nazi propaganda machine. This is outrageous rubbish by journalists whose only intention is to grab a headline. Shameful.

China has come a long way since the Tianamen Square massacre. Chinese people enjoy a lot more freedoms than they did just ten years ago. Freedom of association, freedom of movement, free enterprise, global trade, quality of life, and human rights, all have made massive leaps forward in recent years. Sure, it's not perfect yet, but you can't deny that China has been trying. All this is remarkable for a formerly oppressive communist government. The reason for all these advances is obvious to those that are willing to see it. China wants to be welcomed, included, and respected as a peer. Clearly they are trying hard to please the western world. It is obvious in their responses to critique from the rest of the world. Even the Chinese government's response to the recent massive earthquake in the north makes America's response to Hurricane Katrina look bordering on criminal neglect. "Let he who is without sin"... etc.

These so-called 'journalists' should be ashamed of themselves. Most reporting on China issues is patently one-sided. China should not be berated for being China, it should be praised, welcomed, and encouraged to keep on moving towards international standards of human rights and freedoms. If China feels that the rest of the world is not giving it a 'fair go', it is likely to feel alienated, and close itself off from the western world and return to the days of heavy-handed authoritarian rule.

Give China a fair go. This is it's first major foray into international events co-operation. If the Olympic games are a success, then say so.


What? Google? No, No, No, No, NO!

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The Great Aero Club Massacre
Posted by Pauldos! on 15/06/2008

In 1993, I got a job with a radio communications company in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea (PNG). Port Moresby was a pretty dangerous place. I resided in the company compound along with the owner, Steve, his wife and kids, and the other employees. The compound had 24 hour security to keep the raskols out. Criminals, in PNG, are called 'raskols' ('raskol' has the same meaning and pronunciation as the English word 'rascal').

Steve was a recreational pilot, so his favourite watering hole was the South Pacific Aero Club, alongside the main runway at Port Moresby International Airport.. So, by extension, it was the watering hole of the employees of his company. We went there every Friday night for drinks. Access to the Aero Club is through a gate to the carpark, seen at the far left of the picture below. Two security guards sitting next to the gate confirm the identity of guests before the are granted admittance. In front of the club is a lawn area, a concrete bar-b-cue area, and the doors to the main bar. Beyond the main bar was a dining area, with a small bistro-type kitchen.

Normally I would drink in the main bar with the other employees, but this one night I was drinking with someone else at a table on the lawn. There was a commotion over at the gate that attracted my attention. The security guards seemed to be arguing with someone outside the gate. "What the fuck is going on over there?" I said, but before I could finish my sentence, the gate burst open and five or six men ran in. They were carrying axes, and began chopping people as they made their way to the front bar. I leapt to my feet, but I just stood there as I didn't know what to do. One of the patrons began hoisting children over the fence into the airfield area, and then some of the men started throwing stubbies at the raskols. Now I knew what to do. I ran down the side of the club, and entered the main bar through the side door. I picked up a full stubby that was sitting on a table, and I lined up a raskol that was chopping people at the bar two metres away from me. He stepped to the right, revealing another raskol who was pointing a shotgun right at my face. I panicked, dropped the stubby, and ran for the dining area. The raskol with the shotgun fired, and the TV on the wall exploded as I ran past it.

The dining area was empty, with nowhere to hide - except the kitchen. I headed for the kitchen, but it was full of women, and one man who I knew as Doug. Doug was holding a vacuum cleaner head, and almost hit me with it as I ran in. There was no room in the kitchen, so I grabbed the fire extinguisher off the wall, pulled the pin, and stood in the doorway of the kitchen with my finger on the trigger. I was totally exposed, but no-one came into the dining area. After almost a full minute, the noise died down and I ventured out to the main bar.

The raskols had taken the till and fled, chopping more people on the way out. The main bar area was a gruesome scene, with a gigantic pool of blood on the floor. The blood was up over the soles of my shoes in some places, which put it at over a centimetre deep. I saw one of my workmates, Howard, and he had an axe wound in his back. The wound had, luckily, has missed the bones, and was between his shoulder blade and his spine. There was a lady tending to him, and he was in a bad way. The wound was quite deep, gaping, and I could see his innards.

As the ambulances started arriving, we carried the injured out to the bar-b-cue area, where the most seriously injured were taken to hospital first. As I looked at the bloody footprints all over the place, I suddenly felt like throwing up, so I didn't look at the blood again. Once all the injured had been taken away, and the police enquiries completed for the night, I returned home and called my mother. I needed to talk about it with family, so that it wouldn't eat away at me. Thinking back to it now, it was pretty callous to tell my mother, because all I did was transfer the emotional weight from me to her. But hey, that's what parents are for, isn't it?

The final toll was 1 dead, 19 injured, most of the injuries serious. The local paper had a small article on the robbery, several pages into the paper, which may as well have been a story about the local football team.

During the next week, not a lot was said about the event, except in hushed tones. Howard returned to work after a few days, with his arm in a sling. I don't remember how many stitches he got. The next Friday night we returned to the Aero Club. At first things were pretty quiet, but as the drinks flowed the tongues loosened, and people began to talk about what had happened. There were more people than usual at the Aero Club that night. Some had come to hear the story, some had come to offer 'personal security solutions'. There was a man demonstrating Glock handguns, which piqued my interest. I don't remember the model, but it had a carbon fibre body and slide, with glow-in-the-dark sights. He wanted 200 kina for them (about $125 Australian, if I remember my currency conversion correctly), or 250 kina with the optional license. I was very interested. Steve noticed my interest, and came over. "You are not buying a gun." he said. "If the raskols know you have a gun, they will come to take it off you, and I will not allow you to put my family in that kind of danger.". That ended that idea, but I did enjoy playing with the gun for a while.

The only long-term effect that the incident had on me is that I am more content with my lot in life. I was lucky, I am lucky. I am alive and healthy, and I'd be out of line to demand more.


The South Pacific Aero Club - 1993

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Asia-Pacific alliance
Posted by Pauldos! on 06/06/2008

Anyone who is following world finance will see that the US dollar is falling. Currencies are falling and rising all over the world. Some commentators say that the world may shift to an alternative reserve currency, and they are nominating the Euro. Whether the Euro can fulfil this mammoth role is too difficult to tell. But. The currencies that are moving towards the Euro are experiencing less trouble than currencies that are heavily backed by US dollars. Even China, with all it's wealth - in US dollars - has runaway inflation. Kevin Rudd has proposed an Asia-Pacific alliance, much like the European-Union (EU). He has critics, most prominent being Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, but the first two stories I saw in the news indicate that the Asians like the idea. This is a smart move. We can't shift our reserve currency to the Euro, it's not practical - we're not in Europe. But sure as shit our currency and our economy will sink along with America's if we do nothing. I think the Asians know this too, and that's why they warming to the idea already. Forming this alliance and moving to a single currency would allows us to stop this madness about iron ore prices to China. A stable reserve currency is what we need.

"The Japanese Government says it is looking forward to hearing more from Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on his proposal for an EU-style body for Asia-Pacific cooperation."

"The Indonesian government is eager to make a deeper study on Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd`s recent statement in which he proposed the creation of an Asia Pacific Union, similar to the European Union, by 2020, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said."

I'm now waiting to see what China thinks. China is our biggest trading partner. If they go for this, we could save all (Australia, New Zealand and Asian countries) our economies from the fate that is looming over America. The moral hazard is, of course, of being the rats thats leave the sinking ship, as we stand back and watch America go down the gurgler all by herself.


SHIT YEAH !!

On 08/06/2008, VB tastes bad on Sunday had this to add -
The EU, NAU, AU and now PU dribble etc is all by design, brought to you by the same folks, the CoR (Club of Rome) that divided the planet up into 10 regions back in 1973. Australia was "region 4", long before DVD region 4 ever existenced..partitioning the planet like a hard drive.. more later ;) http://green-agenda.com/globalgovernance.html

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Get ready for a surprise!
Posted by Pauldos! on 26/05/2008

In a scene from the Arnold Schwarznegger movie 'Total Recall', Douglas Quade (Arnie) throws his robotic mask to the gathering police. One officer catches the mask, and looks down at it as other officers gather to look at it. The mask says (speaks!) - Get ready for a surprise! - and then explodes, allowing Quade to escape in the confusion.

That's the way I see the Crude Oil price at the moment. Crude oil prices are going up way too fast. And now the Crude Oil Futures prices are in contango.

One mob is telling me that it's inflation. But I have seen the figures and it is going up a lot faster than inflation.

Another mob is telling me that it's the falling US dollar. But I have seen the figures and the oil price is rising faster than the dollar is falling.

Another mob is telling me that it's Peak Oil. Well, it could be, I do believe the Peak Oil theory. But the price movement is still too fast.

But more people are saying that it's the speculators. I was sceptical, until someone published some figures.

It could very well be that speculators have moved from sub-prime debt into oil and other commodities, and are creating a new bubble. If that's true, then the bubble is going to pop. Hold onto your hats, Crude Oil is going to $40. My guess is - within weeks. (by the end of june)

This from The Houston Chronicle :-
Lehman Brothers' Edward Morse, in a recent report, estimated that assets under management in commodity indexes ballooned from about $70 billion in early 2006 to $235 billion by mid-April. The bulk of that investment has been in oil.

And this from Op-Ed News
Assets allocated to commodity index trading strategies have risen from $13 billion at the end of 2003 to $260 billion as of March 2008, and the prices of the 25 commodities that compose these indices have risen by an average of 183% in those five years.

And this
A report the U.S. Congress released Monday showed that, in January 2000, 37 percent of the NYMEX crude futures contracts were held by speculative traders; but in April 2008, the number has soared to 71 percent. Meanwhile, the proportion of contracts held by commercial traders greatly declined.

Update 29/6/08
OK, it looks like I'm wrong - at least on the timing. I have been flamed heavily for pushing the 'evil speculators' theory. So let's hear the other side.

Don't blame the oil 'speculators'.
If an index fund is indirectly driving up spot oil prices every time it buys a future, then the converse must be true, too - there must be an equal and opposite downward push on spot prices every time that future is sold.

If that's true, then how did dotcom bubble? How did housing bubble? how can anything bubble?

The Speculation Explanation: Framing the Energy Crisis
At the end of the month, those institutions trading in the oil futures markets must really take their oil or sell it to somebody who will. Inventories are not increasing, and every bit of supply is going into the system. The market is functioning according to its own estimate of the future.

OK, this I understand, but my point is that the refineries are a captive market. They must accept the speculator price. As the article itself states - "Inventories are not rising", which means they are only buying what they have to. If they really thought that the price was fair, and going to go up, they would buy all they can now.

After looking at dozens of articles debunking the speculator theory, these were the only two I could find that tried to explain why speculators are not to blame. And I think the explanations are pretty weak. All the others just bluntly denied any fault of the speculators, offering no explanation, or just blaming something/someone else.

Update 06/09/08
I found someone else who supports the bubble theory.
And here.
And here's someone theorising $32 oil.
"Shock waves spread as oil bubble bursts"

Update 21/11/08
The price of crude oil has now dropped below $ 50. I may have been completely wrong about the timing, but to all of you who sent me flaming emails, death threats, and other assorted derogatory comments -
I fucking told you so.



The New York contract brushed the $US40 barrier in intraday trade, sinking to $US40.50, its lowest level since December 2004.


She's Gonna Blow...

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Night Watch and Day Watch
Posted by Pauldos! on 12/05/2008

I recently saw two movies, made in Russia. Night Watch, released in 2004, and the sequel, Day Watch, released in 2007. I watched the english-dubbed versions. Both movies are partnered with 20th Century Fox, which I assume did the dubbing. The dubbing is very good, I hardly noticed it. The opening and closing credits of Night Watch were in english, but the credits for Day Watch were in Russian.

The movies are about the battle between the forces of good and the forces of bad. After fighting for all eternity, they realised that because the forces of good and bad are perfectly matched, there could be no winner, only total destruction of both forces. So they called a truce. With the terms of the truce agreed, the light forces (good) would appoint soldiers to watch over the dark forces (evil) to make sure they kept their side of the truce. They were called 'Night Watch'. The dark forces would also appoint soldiers to watch over the light forces to make sure they also kept their side of the truce. They were called 'Day Watch'.


How cool would it be to own one of the Night Watch trucks?

The basic storyline is not new to cinema, but the Russian perspective makes these movies both intriguing and hard to follow. I had to re-watch a couple of scenes a number of times before I 'got it'. What really impressed me was the quality of Russian film-making. These two movies show that Russian movie-makers can go toe-to-toe with hollywood, in terms of acting quality as well as special effects and storyline.

These movies have everything, including car chases, where the light forces, the Night Watch, drive around in a yellow and red electricity authority truck, which does 140 miles-per-hour with blue flames coming out the exhaust pipes.

Something else which really captivated me is the scenes of modern downtown Moscow, sights rarely seen in the media.
I recommend you see these movies.


The truce is negotiated.

On 06/06/2008, withheld had this to add -
These two movies ("Night Watch"; "Day Watch") came to my attention after watching 'The Movie Show' review of them [SBS: free-to-air television, Aus]. I thought the plot and special effects where interesting and impressive. After viewing "Night Watch", I suggested them to Pauldos! for viewing. It took me a couple of times to understand most of what was going on. I'm a bit of a sci-fi/action/fantasy/... fan so these two movies rate highly with me.

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Grey Goo
Posted by Pauldos! on 12/05/2008

I while ago I read - well, OK, partially read - Eric Drexler's book 'Engines of Creation'. He posited the theory that nanobots, nanometre scaled robots that are designed to self-replicate, would get out of control. Such nanobots would be able to disassemble, molecule by molecule, anything they came into contact with, and use the molecules to build more nanobots. If they ever escaped the lab, they would disassemble everything on the surface of the earth, leaving only a grey goo of nanobots covering the planet.



Another Doomsday scenario. I am a sucker for doomsday scenarios. I told everybody about how 'grey goo' was going to take over the Earth. If this blog existed then, it would be here in between 'Peak Oil' and 'Telomere Erosion'.



The issue seems to have come up in the media again recently. I have spotted three articles on the subject in the past week.

The first article I saw (can't remember the link), showed that, according to the laws of physics, nanobots could not produce the energy required to build replications of themselves while powering themselves. I don't remember the methods, but I am satisfied that their positations were correct.

The second article I saw is the reason the other two appeared. Apparently, Eric Drexler has published a new book, and he no longer believes in the 'grey goo' theory. He does, however, have a new list of threats to mankind from very small machines. The book can be downloaded for free from here.

The third article I saw was a comprehensive article about the 'grey goo' theory, as well as other colours of 'goo'. Below is a copy-and-paste from the site.
The 'pink goo' made me laugh.

Blue Goo - The opposite of Grey goo. Beneficial tech, or 'police' nanobots. The trouble with blue goo is that it could easily make too much of itself - and it's hard to clean up, even to replace with a later version. The idea of 'Blue goo' was apparently invented in 1989. Since then a lot more work has been done on how to stop gray goo, especially in this paper by Robert A. Freitas Jr. 'Some Limits to Global Ecophagy by Biovorous Nanoreplicators, with Public Policy Recommendations', and it appears that (for example) a full-blown worldwide atmospheric infestation can be cleaned up with a mere 88,000 tons of pre-built, non-replicating dragnet robots.

Gray Goo or Grey Goo - Destructive nanobots. Vast legions of destructive nanites. Supposedly created by accident, they are nano-scale or 'atomic-precision' robots capable of precise, molecular control over chemical reactions, programmed to make unlimited copies of themselves, and capable of surviving and gathering supplies in a wide range of environmental conditions. Left unchecked, they would basically convert everything they touch into more of themselves, or consume and digest it for energy (ecophagy). Either way, a gray goo would be bad news.

Green Goo - Nanomachines or bio-engineered organisms used for population control of humans, either by governments or eco-terrorist groups. Would most probably work by sterilizing people through otherwise harmless infections.

Golden Goo - Another member of the grey goo family of nanotechnology disaster scenarios. The idea is to use nanomachines to filter gold from seawater. If this process got out of control we would get piles of golden goo (the 'Wizard's Apprentice Problem'). This scenario demonstrates the need of keeping populations of self-replicating machines under control - it is much more likely than grey goo, but also more manageable.

Khaki Goo - Military Nanites - see grey goo.

Pink Goo - Humans. Pink Goo refers to Old Testament apes who see their purpose as being fruitful and multiplying, filling up of the cosmos with lots more such apes, unmodified.

Red Goo - Deliberately designed and released destructive nanotechnology, as opposed to accidentally created grey goo.

ÜBERGOO - A related term to grey goo, used (jokingly) to refer to the mistaken idea that during the singularity powerful technologies would decimate non-transhumanists, and that some transhumanists would see this as desirable (which is clearly against the Transhuman Principles).

LOR Goo - Lake Ocean River. Nanites that both clean up and harvest the oceans, rivers, and lakes - gathering raw materials, such as precious metal atoms, and cleaning up spills, old waste, wrecks, and other dangerous sites. Cleaning the bad stuff also allows for creation of good stuff, such as more LOR goo. However, it would be hard to recover the goo after it has gathered the desired harvest, and a simple programming error could turn LOR Goo into Gray Goo.




Nanobots, another doomsday scenario. Wait, I have more...

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We're all gonna die
Posted by Pauldos! on 04/05/2008

I constantly come across companion theories while doing research for my Peak Oil page . One of those theories is that along with Peak Oil will come 'Die-Off'. Peak Oil Die-Off is the theory that says that most of the worlds' population will starve and die because we cannot farm food for the amount of people we do now without the assistance of fossil fuels. Did you know that two percent of the population provides the food for the other ninety-eight percent?

Some of the Global Warming advocates also have Die-Off as a side effect of climate change. I don't believe in global warming. Well I do, but I don't believe it's caused by mankind.

I'm not a 'Doomer', but I do find all these theories fascinating.

Die-Off is also a stand-alone theory. There is gathering scientific evidence for 'programmed extinction'.

Well, when I first read about 'programmed death', I was affronted. How dare my DNA conspire to murder me.
But PROGRAMMED EXTINCTION!!!. That's it, We're all gonna die.

O.K. Here's how it goes. I'll assume you at least know roughly what 'DNA' is.
As part of your DNA, you have chromosomes. Chromosomes determine a lot about how your body functions. If your chromosomes are damaged, you develop hideous conditions, including mutations and death. Each time a cell in your body dies from the rigours of living on planet earth, it gets replaced with a copy. The copy is never perfect, a little bit of information is lost from the ends of the chromosomes on every new cell. This is OK, because the chromosomes have strands of junk DNA on the ends. This junk DNA is called 'Telomeres'. Telomeres are a specific length, determined at birth. As your cells multiply, the telomeres get shorter and shorter. When the telomeres are gone, the chromosomes start getting damaged, and the cell dies. Lots of cells die. Organs start failing, you know, getting old. Scientists call this 'programmed death', because how long you will live for is determined when you are conceived. How long you will live is counted in cell divisions, not years. If you are good to your body, and don't force it to do lots of repairs, then you should live a long time, but we already knew that. We know that all forms of cancer are started by telomere loss. Notice I said 'telomere loss', not 'telomere erosion'. Telomere loss is nothing new. Telomere erosion, however, is relatively new.

Scientists have always been puzzled as to why a species does just fine for thousands of years, and then just suddenly dies or evolves into a new species. I always wondered about this too. Why doesn't the Neanderthal man exist today? Did we ALL evolve at once? Did we - the new model - kill all the old models? Science has always had a general-purpose explanation - there was a catastrophe. There was a catastrophe and nearly all of them died, the only ones that survived are the ones that were different, more adapt to the new conditions. The problem with that explanation is that it's perfectly plausible, and it's also perfectly convenient. Sure, there's hard evidence of the catastrophes, but catastrophes only account for four percent of extinctions.

Scientists, doing cancer research I think, discovered some irregularities with the telomeres of their lab mice. This led them to look closer at telomeres. As it turns out, the length of our telomeres gets shorter from generation to generation. This means that each generation has a shorter lifespan than their parents. This is called 'telomere erosion'. As everyone on earth has roughly the same lifespan, that means everyone is roughly the same number of generations old. There will come a point when our telomeres are so short that we effectively are born near death. As this will affect the whole human race, this will be the point of extinction. Programmed extinction.

When telomeres become critically short, and chromosomes get damaged, a strange thing happens. The chromosome detects that it is damaged, and institutes an emergency repair system which restores the telomeres to full length. Quite often, the damage to the chromosome causes it to replicate like crazy, and now with a long lifespan. This is called cancer. In a primitive world, this means death.

If the cell doesn't turn cancerous, it will almost certainly be mutated from the chromosome damage. This will occur throughout the whole population, with people dying and mutating all over the place. As the telomeres are different lengths on different chromosomes, it may take a number of generations until all chromosomes have mutated and the telomeres restored to full length. When it's all over, a new species (or species') will have been born. This, the scientists say, explains why a species seems to do fine for thousands of generations and then suddenly evolves, even when there is no apparent environmental change.

I remember some of the religion that I was taught in my childhood, and I remember reading in the Bible that Noah (or someone) was four hundred years old. I always thought that it could not be true. There must have been bad accounting or record-keeping, or maybe they had a different calendar back then and years were shorter, or maybe it was just a tall tale to make the congregation go "WOW". But if our telomeres were longer back then, could we have actually lived for that long? I will have to do more research on that.

This has been my interpretation of what I have read. To see all the information I have seen, Google the phrase 'telomere erosion'.

There is an article about it here , which seems to source the same data I read, but explains it a bit better than I do.

And yet another viewpoint here .


Chromosome structure

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Admit Defeat.
Posted by Pauldos! on 17/04/2008

I keep hearing about Wall street having 'rallies', and 'recoveries'.
The truth - 'Death throes'.

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Perchance to Dream
Posted by Pauldos! on 08/04/2008

I don't dream. I have not dreamt since I was a child. Of course, people tell me that I do dream, I just don't remember my dreams. That's probably true, but absolutely ir-fucking-relevant and un-fucking-helpful. Twits. If you don't remember your dream, did you really have one?

Anyway...

I have tried to give up smoking a number of times. One attempt lasted for two-and-a-half years. The most recent attempt saw me cigarette-free for 18 months. That ended about 18 months ago. Although the cravings were easily tolerable or non-existant most of the time, it's very difficult to handle the cravings when drinking alcohol. Everything can be going along fine, and then one beer too many sees my self control go down another notch and before long I'm lighting up a fag. Disappointing, but a lot of people get hooked on cigarettes so totally, and so irreversibly, that there MUST be something in our DNA that causes such a strong link between humans and tobacco. But I guess that's some research for another day. On with the story.

I have tried a variety of methods for giving up. Cold turkey (3 times) - 6 months. The quit program - 11 months. Smokenders - 2 1/2 years. Nicotine patches - 18 months. The last attempt, with the nicotine patches, came with a bonus. The information pamphlet that came with the patches bore a warning - 'May cause vivid dreams or nightmares'. Cool.

The night of the first day I wore the patch was fantastic. I dreamt vividly. In the morning I couldn't imagine that anyone could be happier than I was. I dreamt every night while I wore the patches, and one night I even had a nightmare. I dreamt I was being eaten alive by a wild animal, I can't remember what animal, but it was fantastic. I woke up screaming, and once I was awake, I laughed out loud. I wanted to wake up everyone in the house, and everyone in the street, and tell them that I had a nightmare. It was great. Admittedly it sound like I'm a bit nuts, but if you had not had a dream since you were a child, it would be a really big deal to you, too. After the nightmare, I wrote a letter to the company that made the nicotine patches. I told them that their patches were giving me dreams where I had none before and that I loved it, and I asked them if there was any problem with using patches long-term. I wanted to wear them forever. The company wrote back thanking me for my letter, and said that they were pleased that I was happy with their product, but after that was a copy-and-paste of the disclaimer from the information pamphlet. Oh, well, I didn't really expect any sort of a response at all.

In an attempt to cut down on my smoking, I've taken to smoking a pipe. And I don't smoke at work anymore, so that only leaves the evening and weekends when I'm smoking. And I've gone back to the nicotine patches. Not to help me give up smoking, because I now know that is probably not possible. Although the nicotine patches keep cravings from bothering me at work, that is also not the reason I wear them. I wear them for the dreams. And I will continue to wear the patches until they stop making them.


Keep 'em coming!!

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Earth Hour - What a waste of time.
Posted by Pauldos! on 30/03/2008

Well, earth hour the other night managed to reduce our nationwide electricity consumption by 5% for one hour, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. Do you think you're making a difference? Well you're not. For a start, the amount of energy and raw materials that went into the preparation and propaganda for the event means that the lights should have been off for 3 days to to have a net negative effect. Fucking tossers. I didn't turn one single light off. I did not watch the stupid festivities.

There is 88 million people born on earth each year. That's four times the population of Australia. If every single man, woman, and child in Australia were to completely stop using all forms of energy, the difference would be made up in THREE MONTHS !!. OK, so not all people being born will be born into a energy-intensive consumer society, but it would still not be long for the difference to be made up. As long as the human population continues to expand at the geometric rate that it has for the past 200 hundred years, there is NO escaping the inevitable.

So, as an individual, there is nothing you can do to stop climate change. There is nothing you can do to slow it down. Any effort to mitigate climate change on a large scale just uses even more energy. Humans seem to gravitate towards complex solutions that don't actually provide a solution at all. As a case in point - Wind energy. The massive amounts of energy required to smelt the steel for the towers, manufacture the turbines, transport and install the giant windmills means that they will have to operate flawlessly for over 50 years before they have made up for the environmental damage their manufacture caused. Crazy. And if you look very hard at almost all of these 'solutions', you will find the same problem. Another example - solar panels NEVER return the energy that it cost to create them. Refining silicon is energy intensive to the extreme. Made with cheap overseas labour and subsidised by the government, it may save you a few bucks on your power bill, but they are NOT environmentally friendly.

I do have compact flourescent light bulbs in my house, but only to reduce my electricity bill. I do not fool myself that they are saving the environment, because CFL's use more energy to manufacture than they will save in their entire life. And CFL's use toxic chemicals and toxic processes to manufacture. Installing CFL's may reduce the carbon coming out of our power stations, but their manufacture increases the carbon coming out of China's power stations. We are just exporting our carbon, and then we have the audacity to complain about China's carbon output !!. CFL's may be good for your power bill, but they do fuck-all for the environment.

It's about time the truth was told about all these environmental 'solutions'. There is only one REAL solution. Population control. But of course that will never happen. It's too touchy a subject for politicians and world leaders. So, just enjoy the current world climate while it lasts. Live it up. We're all going to die, why spend our last decades pushing shit uphill, trying to fix the unfixable ?
Anyone who believes that ANYTHING they are doing will save the environment - is a fuckwit.


Just how much energy was required to manufacture and operate this balloon?

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China, the Olympics, and business
Posted by Pauldos! on 18/03/2008

China is blocking spot iron ore from our two major producers. They want to force them to the bargaining table before they merge.

China has also been at extreme pains to present a 'nice' face to the rest of the world for the Olympics. Cleaning up their air, streets, and even trying to change the culture of the residents of Beijing by discouraging spitting, and other things. They have tried to be restrained with the Tibetans, and media spin on the riots is in overdrive. One of the least noticed things they are doing ( I have noticed ) is propping up the US dollar, by not selling it. But what do you think is going to happen once the Olympics are over? You bet your balls they will. I beleive that once the Olypics are over, China will dump the dollar like it was a rabid dog. They will be spending like drunken sailors. The half-hearted attempt at a hostile take-over of an Australian iron mining company recently will go gang-busters, with China launching ludicrously high bids for strategic companies all over the world.

And for oil, too.

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Global Bloody Warming
Posted by Pauldos! on 23/02/2008

I get sick of every news report saying "it's worse than we thought". I have a scientific mind, and the way I see it, it cannot be perpetually 'worse than we thought', unless the news is deliberately biased. Otherwise it's only a matter of months until the planet explodes into a fireball. Statistcally, there has to be someone saying "it's not as bad as we thought" about something somewhere. This lack of a contrasting opinion makes me suspicious of all this global warming bullshit.

There is always a bad side, never a good side. Mosquitoes will spread malaria further north or south. And the other day, I heard that sharks will now spread further south, and gobble up the penguin and seals. How can it ALWAYS be bad? I went over to worldclimatereport , and lo-and-behold, they have an article about this shark invasion story, "good for bad, and bad for good". I like to go to World Climate Report for sensible, scientific reporting of global warming. This site, unlike the millions of other GW sites, is manned by actual scientists, and the articles they published are peer-reviewed. Peer-reviewed means that their papers are checked by independent scientists for factual accuracy before they are published. This is not true for most of the GW bullshit you read in the papers and see on TV.

Global Warming is overblown horse-shit.


Arctic ice temperatures for the past 1,500 years.

On 07/06/2008, VB made me do it had this to add -
I hit the mother load tonight: Al Gore is a member of CoR (Club of Rome) and they write lovely books about global warming and other bogus threats to scare we populations into "new world order" submission... "In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself." http://green-agenda.com/globalrevolution.html

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