On Geoengineering

Cartoonist Stephanie McMillian of the strip Code Green has a criticism of the effort that I and others have put into geoengineering the earth:
Well, I highly doubt that I'd see millions for geoengineering, or for that matter, turn a profit at all. As for mastery over the earth, I'd argue that we've had that since we managed to figure out fire. I do agree that reducing emissions in the first place is the most ideal solution, but there's a catch.
Specifically, reducing emissions would require an unprecedented amount of cooperation, which is unlikely to be forthcoming, given what people believe. I live in a region not only riddled with global warming denial, but the belief in abiotic oil -- the belief that oil doesn't come from the fossilized remains of things dead for eons, but instead is generated in the mantle and bubbles up, due to handwave handwave god handwave handwave.
Since these people do not believe that global warming is even happening, they are unwilling to make any changes to their lifestyle, energy use, or anything else, in order to resolve what they regard as a non-issue. I have tried to convince them, but they have largely been unwilling to listen. Psychology studies suggest that they are basically un-convincable as they have made this a tribalist issue, in which they have largely defined themselves as not the kind of person who believes. And as for the facts, the facts be damned. If chemistry and physics shows that this is happening, then by jingo, chemistry and physics must clearly be socialist plots.
Since they can't be convinced, the next step would be to try and organize to defeat them politically, which would also be insanely difficult, as they are a very entrenched interest group with the backing of at least 40% of the electorate. We couldn't force it without effectively having a brutal second American civil war, likely to pull in and destabilize other countries as well.
Video blogger Hank Green once lamented that the copyright solution that Youtube, the company that he must work with on a daily basis, does not use the best possible solution for the conflict between people wanting to upload videos that may contain additional copyrighted work (such as someone else's music in the soundtrack), but instead the most possible solution. Similarly, I think that geoengineering is, at this point, the most possible solution, as I do not require universal cooperation to make it happen. It does not challenge the deniers, who are unlikely to even notice.
However, one thing that emission efficiency that she advocates would give us is that it would enable us to geoengineer less. The more carbon we have to yank out of the atmosphere, the more extreme the measures that we will have to resort to in order to actually make it happen. The more trees you can plant, the less I have to feed the ocean. The more you can reduce your use of gas-burning cars, coal-derived electricity, and cement, the less I have to dim the atmosphere to protect against the most catastrophic effects. The more you can use organically farmed produce instead of factory farmed meat, the fewer artificial trees I will have to plant in the desert.
Ultimately, I'm interested in geoengineering to give us a better world than the one nature gave us. A world that has space for both the cities that help us get what we want and need, and the nature that we admire so much. And with practice, I'd like to use what we learn from doing this to turn Mars from a frozen dried rock into a lush world with many human cities, and Venus from a scorching hellish world into a new paradise. And someday when the sun dies, I'd like us to be able to move out into the universe, carrying with us the gifts of the earth, who will continue to live on in a new world, perhaps one not yet born.

Blerg

Where did the past four months, almost five, go? Oh right, I was working a crapton of overtime due to a major expansion event. We're now taking clients as far away as San Antonio and Dallas. All this work has been great for my budget, but for ideas, I haven't had any for months. Then I had one, but it will take some time to properly write up. This can only mean one thing. I'm back. Let's see if I can keep it that way.

Peccavi

Forgive me readers, for I have sinned. I have failed to update this blog for over 3 months. For shame.

Working nights is a bad idea for blogging. I come home in the gloom of night exhausted and semi-insane, and I ache too much to think of anything serious. Also, my wrists and back tend to hurt from spending the day sitting and incessantly typing.

I didn't even have any real big ideas during these last three months. I had snatches of an idea here and there, and read of some awesomely insane ideas of engineering past, but by the time I could sit down and write it up, I had forgotten. I'll try and get to what I can remember within this week.

There were also a lot of crisis-es that sucked up a lot of time. Like when a large jug of water tipped over the other day, and the rest of the day was lost to cleaning that mess.

Anyway, I'll try my best to keep up the good work. Will definitely have a new post for tomorrow.

Also, by the time you read this, I will probably be asleep, as working nights means early morning is sleep time.

Call me...

I need a new nickname. "The Mad Engineer" seemed good enough when I started, but now there's several blogs named mad engineering. Surprise. Though I like the anonymity, I want a way for people to address me, personally. In addition, I'm interested in guest posts and extra writers, and wish to distinguish myself from them.
Henceforth, I'm changing my official name here to "Professor Preposterous." From the Latin word, meaning:

Absurd, or contrary to common sense.

Or more accurately, something that's so wrong as to be an inversion of the actual truth. After all, patent ludicrousness is what this blog's all about.

In other news, I've caught some sort of Martian-death-flu at work and am behind on everything. Guest posters wanted.

Merry Christmas

With peace on earth and good will to humankind.
Also, a psychotic machine made of drills and hacksaws in every driveway.

Two links

I'm still worn out from the hunt. In the meantime, two things for you to read about:
TwoYaks of Alaska has some good advice for preparing yourself for winter. It's going to be a cold one this year, but if you're prepared, it'll be less bad for you.
A British electronic engineer has made a Z80 based laptop, able to run all the old programs and games, and made entirely by hand. Damn. He even wrote his own OS for it. Now that's dedication to hand crafting.

Back to Analytics

When I reviewed the site analytics, I saw something tragic:

how to get girlfriend back -saveabreakup.com site:blogspot.com

This poor unfortunate soul. Girlfriend's gone, heart's broken, and wants her back at all costs.
I don't know the entire situation, but she's probably gone forever. When people break up, that's usually the end of that relationship. I would advise, if this person asked, to get a new girlfriend. The earth has 6,900,000,000 people, and at least 3,500,000,000 of them are female. at least one of them would almost assuredly want a relationship with you.
If you really want to pursue reversing your breakup, you face a very uphill battle. You must remove the condition that made her leave you in the first place. Which requires you to first figure out what that was, which may lead to some very painful introspection. Did she disapprove of some habit (which you will now need to quit at all costs), dislike your lifestyle (which you must totally change), or was it something else? If there's a new person in her life, you will need to displace them, by being that much better than he (or she) is.
I don't guarantee success. Even if you changed everything, sometimes she's just tired of your face (or something else you can't help).
(Also, how did that lead to me?)

Other searches were more...prosaic:

2088 olympics and pollution

I predict that the 2088 Olympics will be held in a city of some kind. (Well, obviously, Sherlock!) It will be a summer Olympics by schedule. The city hosting it will face the paradox that faces all Olympic hosts: to develop the infrastructure that the Olympics requires, typically attracts industries that pollute like crazy, but the athletes at the competition expect a pollution free city to exercise in. What's a city to do?
Probably some sort of clean-up project, sane or insane.


engineering a ditch

Depending on the scale, what you want is a "shovel" or a "backhoe." Very big holes can also involve "explosives." The smaller tools are preferable for smaller ditches because there are fewer ways to accidentally injure yourself with them.


materialism computer science

Materialism is the philosophy that only the physical universe exists (or is important). Computer science is the field of study of storing and manipulating information. Materialist philosophers would point out that there is a physical basis to the information represented. In a computer's case, the software is a pattern of electricity in the processor or memory, and stored as a pattern of magnetic fields on the disk when not in use. So, no problems there.

And now, team WTF, the confusing ones:

electrical sex stimulator.com

You won't find that here, if at all.

diaper change simulation
Why?

Advertising

Google, my blog's sponsor, has an advertising program. It's where their money comes from, after all. And they're good at it.
I think I would like to advertise my blog. Two problems. One, financing, which I think I'll take care of reasonably soon.
But two, and probably more important, is keyword decisions. I literally have no idea what people want. Analytics tells me that people's favorite article is the philosophy one, and I can hardly claim to be a philosophy blog.
I could have a banner. Except I'm terrible at drawing. So this would amount to paying someone else to draw a banner, which would be more expensive.
And where? On certain search results? On similar blogs? Something else that I haven't thought of?
Marketing's hard. How do you convince people of things, most importantly paying attention to you in the first place?
Google, can you have a "suggest advertising" program of some kind, that maybe people pay for or something?

It's a Small World

Having monitored this blog for a year, Google's analytical tools reports that I have hits from a very large percentage of the world's countries.

The map is a little deceptive, because it's grouped by countries. My hits from Russia, for instance, were entirely in the densely populated western end, with nothing east of Moscow. Some countries only provided hits from one particular city, while others had reach all over.
I am amazed that I have hits from every continent. Sure, Africa's a little light, but no continent goes unrepresented, with the possible exception of Antarctica, which has no permanent residents anyway. Quite a few of these hits came only once, stayed for only a few seconds, and then left, but wow was the entire world listening.
Some of the absences are obvious. North Korea, for instance, has few operating computers, a sporadically functioning power grid, regards my country as their mortal enemy, and cares not about the opinions of outsiders. Others, less so. Central Africa and Asia, for instance, are strange little holes.
Looking forward to another year of crazy inventions and rants.

Common Topics

I've checked Google's analysis of this blog again. I notice the popularity of some articles. And sometimes I'm totally confused.
The Forbidden Experiment
baby experiment, language spoken, 1 search
results of a forbidden experiment, 1 search
the forbidden experiment, 1 search
In medieval times, it was commonly thought that humankind had one original language, and that if children were raised without ever hearing speech, that they would therefore speak this language. Furious debates emerged about if this would be Latin, Greek, Hebrew, or Egyptian, all languages with a religion-based significance and high prestige to medieval people. The experiment was run from children taken from orphanages to finally settle the argument once and for all.
To everyone's surprise, none of these languages were spoken. Instead, children raised in the absence of speech learned no language at all, and grew up massively intellectually crippled, when they survived at all. The experiment is now "forbidden" on the grounds that it is hideously evil, but is sometimes accidentally re-run when a child is abandoned in the wild (sometimes due to the abrupt death of their parents, sometimes because their parents evilly abandon them there). See feral children for more information about this.
Jungle Gyms
jungle gym structure, 1 search
architecture based on jungle gym, 1 search
A "Jungle Gym" is a playground structure consisting of many metal bars arranged in a pattern. Children exercise by climbing it, swinging across the bars, and so on. The metal parts are typically attached by welding, the entire structure is embedded in cement on the site, and a rubber mat is cut and laid across the ground to minimize falling injuries.
I once proposed a very very large one.
Genetic Algorithms
Genetic Algorithm music, 1 search
Genetic Algorithm number theory, 1 search
Genetic Algorithms are a use in Computer Science for the biological principles of evolution, to produce a data structure that has traits you're certain of, but the fine details you are not. It works by having a pool of structures, eliminating the ones least like the goal structure, combining the ones most like the goal structure to refill the pool, and giving a few some random alterations, and repeating until the goal structure emerges. The program thus "evolves" like biological life does, reaching the goal in small incremental steps. (The "goal" of biological life is to "survive and multiply under the currently prevailing conditions.") Genetic algorithms are useless if one does not have a fitness criteria to explain which structures are better adapted. Biological life's criteria is "the ability to survive and reproduce under the current circumstances."
A genetic algorithm for music would require listening to quite a lot of bad music before it would ever produce good music. Unless you could mathematically define what good music would be.
I'm not entirely sure how it would be applied to number theory.
have some recurring searches.
Materialism vs. Idealism
Materialism vs. Idealism, 6 searches
Materialist vs. idealist, 4 searches
materialism vs, 2 searches
Materialism and idealism are philosophical positions about the nature of the universe. Materialism says that only things that have mass, and in theory can be touched, are real. So the sun, Mars, your computer, the grass, are all real because they can be touched, and things like ghosts and spirits are not real because they cannot be touched. Idealism says that the physical world is unreal, it is ideas that are real. In idealist situations, the world you know may very well be imagined by you and have no reality whatsoever.
Emotional Computing
Emotional computing, 8 searches
People and animals have emotions about things. This helped animals to survive, by running from threats, taking pleasure in things that helped them survive, fighting irritations in rage, and so on. Machines like computers do not have emotions, but can be programmed to anticipate the emotional state of the user. With this information, it can adapt to be more helpful, like noting a confused or frustrated state and observing that maybe it needs to offer an easier interface, if available.
Algae and Food
how to grow edible algae, 1 search
grow edible algae, 1 search
There's some 18 species of algae that you can eat, and that readily grow in certain types of water. A helpful note if we ever run out of farmland.
Mispelled Things
a pole of how many people would want domotics, 1 search
materialist, 1 search
materalist, 1 search
mad engginering, 1 search
A pole is a long cylinder, this guy wanted a "poll." Everyone could use domotics, but for many, it's not worth the effort. It's of most interest to engineers, who like the challenge, the physically disabled, who can accomplish more that way, and the very busy, who get more spare time from it.
Materialism's root word is "material." Physical stuff.
Engineering has two "g"s, not three.
Pyschology
deformation professionalle, 1 search
cognitive dissonance global warming denialism, 1 search
negative opinions of exploited cognitive dissonance, 1 search
"Deformation Professionalle" is seeing the world with a bias due to your profession. It's a pun in French from "Formation Professionalle," with translates to "Professional Training."
Cognitive dissonance is the uncomfortable feeling one gets when one realizes that two ideas of yours conflict, and therefore one must be discarded as wrong. It's speculated to fuel denial of climate change with the following chain of thought: "Economic activity is always good. Economic activity produces carbon dioxide. Climate change theory says that carbon dioxide is harmful. The only way to reduce carbon dioxide is via reduced carbon dioxide, or tax-paid sequestering, either of which would slow economic activity. This would mean some economic activity is not good. Since all economic activity is good, therefore climate change must be incorrect." (See how the two ideas conflicted, so one was discarded?)
As for people not liking to be manipulated, no, they don't. Yes, they probably would be annoyed if you intentionally gave them cognitive dissonance.
Bizarre Nanoscale Ideas
gender altering nanites transgender fiction, 1 search
nanite gender change, 1 search
Nanobots, or "nanites" as common sci-fi has taken to calling them, are nanometer-scale mechanical devices, small enough to manipulate individual atoms. Very crude ones have recently been invented, but when this technology matures, it would revolutionize manufacturing, medicine, and engineering forever, because it could very cheaply manipulate materials and gather energy from all kinds of cheap sources. The field is slowed in progress by the fact that at this small scale, the rules are totally different. Large engines need lubrication from motor oil to continue to run, but this would only terminally clog a motor on this scale.
The medical uses revolve around the fact that they could completely redesign your body, power themselves on your excess blood sugar, which you could recover by just eating more. They could close any open wounds, repair any of your failing organs, re-engineer your bones to multiple times their original strength, give you superhuman musculature without exercise, arbitrarily change almost any trait imaginable, and help you survive in the most hostile environments available. If you wanted to reshape yourself into a giant bird with hydrogen filled bones, they could do it.
...but the internet being what it is, there's more interest for some reason in recreating Rumiko Takahashi's famous transformation tale. Why?
Things my blog mentioned and I'm not sure why people followed
Schlock Mercenary, 1 search
water system engineer webcomic, 1 search
xkcd mad engineering, 1 search
how to drive for maximum mileage, 1 search
human survival in space webcomic, 1 search
quantum vector collector..., 2 searches
Schlock Mercenary is Howard Taylor's tale of a company in the deep future, the overly complicated machine is from Andy Weir's Casey and Andy, the only comic I know with water system engineering is Angela Melnick's Wasted Talent, and XKCD is Randall Monroe's stick-figure bits of math and science ideas. I'm not sure if by "human survival in space" they meant inside a space ship (likely, see Schlock) or outside one (manifestly impossible).
As for driving for maximum gas milage, accelerate slowly, coast as often as possible, slow down if a stop is threatening, and brake slowly ahead of time. Avoid braking if possible.
Things that I have no idea what the hell
meat barge, 1 search
brownian engine gas, 1 search
fictional things to do on venus, 1 search
fusion 1911 slab longside, 1 search
google famous composers 1400-1800 classical music, 2 searches
conclusion in prevention of global warming, 1 search
Is a meat barge a small ship that carries meat, in which case a train or a plane would probably bring it to market faster, or a small ship made of meat, which is as crazy as it is stupid?
Is a brownian gas engine one that uses the brownian motion in a gas, like air? Or did they mean from gasoline?
Fictionally on Venus, one could hypothetically do anything you could on Earth. Practically, though, you'd want to cool it and reduce its atmosphere to a level that didn't instantly crush you.
As for famous composers, I'm aware of: Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven. Probably many more that I'm not aware of.
As for the fusion slab, I just can't make any sense of that at all.
And the global warming guy, he wants a conclusion? A conclusion to prevent? I don't see how these two words fit together.

Artificial Heart Recipient

I love it when my whackjob ideas are vindicated. In Singapore, a woman now has a non-beating artificial heart similar to the one I described.
Well, actually, no. The design she got was different, according to sources at MIT. Hers is a continuously pumping bar, my design calls for a heart-shaped pump that speeds up and slows down. Still, proof that a beat isn't strictly necessary does leave me encouraged.
Our best wishes to Ms. So'ot, I hope her new heart allows her to live a long life.

A Question For Blogger Staff

How the hey are the "Backlinks" functions supposed to work? I've noted that blogs I've linked to don't mention my writeup, even when I obey the format.....

Roadposts

I have more than 100 entries now. Which is awesome, but I'm sure you wanted me to come up with some sort of insane invention.

Fine. I propose a highway consisting of uncountably many little conveyor belts, thereby distributing the energy needs of propulsion between the car and the city power grid.

What's that, the tires might get caught in between the belts? Or the belt would have to be implausibly long? And getting on the offramp would involve an abrupt deceleration of the speed of the belt?

If this seems like a bad idea, it's because I thought of it when I was ten and had studied neither mechanics nor physics yet.

Intro

I am not, strictly speaking, an engineer. The degree that I'm pursuing is computer science, not engineering.

Nonetheless, sometimes I have ideas of how to solve various problems in the world. These ideas have various levels of practicality, and some can't possibly be useful due to the expense or effort in implementing. No matter how bad the problem is, few things on earth need billions of dollars thrown at them, and some things are completely intractable no matter how many resources are thrown at them.

In this blog, I'm going to share some of the ideas I have. Maybe one of them might actually be adopted.

I feel willing to tell you, the assembled audience, that at this point I am 27 years old, a college senior, attending at the University of Houston Victoria, and looking for work. I do have to watch what I say, as some people do feel inclined to play internet detective to find and bother people on the grounds that more things should be secret.