Speed

See now... this is the kind of thing that makes me wish I could play games at work...

Tower of Power

I have sometimes described myself as a "pragmatic environmentalist." That is the kind of description that is likely to earn disdain from both extremes of many debates, but that's okay. I can deal, and I think in many cases it allows me a good perspective on practical things we can do without becoming too "head in the clouds" to come up with viable things we can do.

With that as background, I have to say that I absolutely love this idea. The Aussies have come up with a plan to build a tower that uses solar energy to heat air, which then naturally rises through a "chimney" and turns turbines to create electricity. They are predicting that a single installation will be able to provide enough energy to run a small city, which is pretty good. It's a truly emission-free method for producing energy without using up precious natural resources, and sounds like it has great potential for the future. It's probably too early to say with certainty whether it's a viable idea in many places, but it's the kind of thinking and experimentation that is worth encouraging moving forward.

The structure will be 1600 feet tall... so don't build it near an airport.

"Your jam factor is GREEN"

I have had XM radio in my pickup for several months now. One of the nice things about it is that I can always flip over to the traffic station during my commute and see if I should be looking for a different route, get some idea of how long this is going to take, etc.

They always start the traffic spiel by saying "Your jam factor is (Red/Yellow/Green)" Presumably red is bad, yellow is not good, and green is good. The funny thing is that until yesterday I had never heard the jam factor as anything other than yellow during rush hour. I expect that I will hear it as red during an ice storm or something, and I figured the only time it was ever green was during the middle of the night.

Yesterday, though, I got in the car and heard, "Metroplex traffic is really good, unless you are driving the route that Don uses to get home."

Okay... maybe that wasn't quite what they said. What they actually said is, "Your jam factor is green." They then proceeded to say, "On I-35 there are no problems. (etc. for all major highways). I had NEVER heard that before. I made the only inference I could... that traffic was good - or at least better than usual throughout the metroplex. This was great! I was going to make it home in good time (which was good, since I was a little behind schedule for getting to meet the teacher night).

Sadly, traffic was apparently only good everywhere else... For me, though, it was, if anything, worse than usual. It took me 90 minutes to travel the 30 miles to home.

/sigh.

You can't take the sky from me...

If you haven't had the pleasure of seeing the original Firefly series, you really owe it to yourself to see it. Order the season from Amazon. Rent it from Blockbuster. Sign up for a Netflix account purely so you can see the Firefly series. However you do it, go see the show.

The movie, Serenity, based upon the series is also quite outstanding. While you're at Amazon, Blockbuster, Netflix, or whatever, pick up a copy of that, too. (I would recommend watching the season before the movie. It's not really necessary, but it adds to the movie experience if you already know the characters.)

Then, once you've become addicted, you really should sign up as a supporter for Firefly Season 2.