Category: Science

Trust and Lies

History is replete with people who prevaricate to the masses. The masses are complicit as they are either too lazy to read history or fail to remember history, or cannot or don’t want to accept the truth. The allure of a lie is better than the cold hard ugly facts otherwise known as truth.

Today the French President was hailed for using a small hammer to symbolize an agreement to a new treaty with 200 nations that would supposedly bring global warming down two (2) degrees Celsius or 3.6F.

I am not going to debate the Al Gore trumped up money making schemes of “global warming” but, I am certain that today he is celebrating as his campaign contributions are now going to pay off in the form of Carbon Credits.

Lies of the 70’s

I remember long extended lines to buy gas as there was this shortage. We are running out of Fossil fuel and there was a shortage of gas. Prices climbed from .50 cents to about a dollar to $1.32. As soon as the prices made it to the level that OPEC and other oil producing countries agreed upon, oil started to flow once again. During this time of turmoil, tankers ran aground spilling their precious cargo. Several tankers who had successfully navigated the pond for years were suddenly running aground. Why?

The oil shortage was a lie… I suspect that tankers were parked off shore holding their cargo to create the shortage. They parked in areas that they did not normally traverse thus hitting things under the water as storms pushed them one way or another…

The ozone layer going away was the next in a series of lies to make more money.

The common most abundant sources of Freon were suddenly a hazard to the ozone layer. $1.25 would get you a small can of Freon that you yourself could put into your car to juice up the air-conditioner. Most manufacturers put a site glass on top of the dryer (part of the AC Unit under the hood) that you could visually see if you needed Freon. If there were air bubbles in it, with it working, you simply hooked a can up to low pressure side and allowed the gas to go from the can to the AC unit.

Today we have gasses that have replaced them which are not as efficient, work at much higher pressures and … the compressors and coils don’t hold up as well, the failure rate is higher.

DuPont and others, now sell these precious gasses at much higher cost. The coils and compressor manufactures make much more money as they sell you replacement components, and new systems at a much more frequent rate, as the higher pressures cause failures at a higher rate.

So, you say that there is a hole over the north and South Pole where ozone is thinner…Thus all of the CFC’s that come from refrigerants and aerosol cans are to blame…

Let me make this short and sweet for you…

Ozone or O3 is created by some form of energy causing an extra molecule to stick to O2..Oxygen. When this happens we have O3…ozone. The air o2 rushing up towards the sun uses infrared light…from the sun to cause molecules to bond, O3. Lightening and other electrical discharges also create O3.

Why the ozone holes in the layer over the poles… Lack of strong UV energy over the poles as the earth is tilted… That is why it is cold at the poles…

We breathe in O2 and change it to carbon dioxide Co2 which the plants use to create O2.

Well what about these CFS that are destroying the Ozone…

CFC’s are about 5 times heavier than O3 and O2… lead does not float. CFC’s have never been found that high as they don’t float. We were lied to for pecuniary interests…another government bought and paid for by special interests.

The Washington Cartel was bought and paid for once again.

Other products were affected as well as prices went from a dollar $1 a can, to $15 a can for such things a solvents used in production.

Let there be light

Under Bush, we decide to do away with the incandescent light bulb, as they are simply too costly to run. 4 for a $1 bulbs but no…must make more money…

There is actually precedence for finding less expensive sources of light but…CFL bulbs are not the answer.

CFL bulbs contain mercury which is a toxic heavy metal. If you break one of these bulbs there is this whole elaborate cleanup procedure. If you throw the dead ones in the trash you are putting mercury into the landfills which was tied to another lie regarding, doing away with mercury batteries.

These bulbs cannot go into applications with dimmers until they redesign the circuit to work with them.

They are a fire hazard and they don’t last as advertised. They should not be used in any application where once turned on, that they are turned off within 15 minutes or less, as that will shorten their life.

“That leaves out closets and bathrooms or any other type of task light.”

LED Bulbs are making inroads but these are still way too expensive and if you try and do the cost justification, it does not exists unless you are a store operator or some sort of shop that uses lights for hours at a time.

The shrinking ice packs are in fact growing. The earth goes through cycles of warmth and cold and I suspect follows the eleven (11) year cycle of the sun which is now in an active state.

The global warming nuts cannot explain the increase in ice so they are still looking for the gloom and doom.

We have much more pressing issues in this world other than global warming. The earth has come back from the brink of extinction many times over and I suspect like fleas on the back of a dog…we too will one day either do ourselves in with our hubris or stupidity and the earth will shake off the dead bodies and something new will appear or evolve out of our leavings.

If I were the president, I would be more concerned about alleviating the pressure from underneath Yellowstone’s volcano, which will affect all life on the planet when it goes off. Notice that I did not say if…it will go off, and then all of these global warming kooks will scratch their head, or ass; which is probably interchangeable as the earth enters into an ice age. Whoever does not die as a direct result of the explosion will either perish at the hands of their neighbors, or starve to death. Some will survive but the world will be a different place for years to come.

As the jet stream carries the ash around the globe depending upon the amount released from this “super volcano” The earth may not be suitable for growing food for decades.

I would invest resources in searching for life ending events in space as well as ways to change their trajectories and, I would of course provide for the common defense of this country which they seem to be ignoring as work place violence or too many guns!

Unless you can get all of the countries/governments on board with this climate and deforestation thing, (the two go hand in hand) you are changing the global landscape of economics by pressuring companies to take their businesses where taxes and global warming nuts are simply not paid attention to.

Their air pollution is believed to kill 350K to 500K people per year.

(FILES) This picture taken 18 July 2006 shows cyclists passing through thick pollution from a factory in Yutian, 100km east of Beijing in China’s northwest Hebei province. China has no plans to radically change its reliance on coal and other dirty fuels despite already feeling the impacts of global warming, a leading Chinese meteorologist said 06 February 2007. In the first official Chinese response to a stark UN report issued last week on climate change, Qin Dahe said China lacked the technology and financial resources for a wholesale conversion to cleaner energy sources. AFP PHOTO/Peter PARKS/FILES (Photo credit should read PETER PARKS/AFP/Getty Images)

China-Pollution.JPEG-0bfec-555x370.jpg — Your smart phone comes from here…

This administration seems more interested in paying back those that put forth campaign funding, securing future funding for more politicians and the liberal socialistic agenda.

We dissolved any hope of the Keystone pipeline while a train that has a huge carbon footprint carries the oil from Canada to the Gulf… The train of course, is owned indirectly by one of the democrat’s largest funders or donators.

This July 8, 2013 file photo provided by Surete du Quebec via the Canadian Press, shows wrecked oil tankers and debris from a runaway train in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, Canada. U.S. transportation officials say the oil industry is not giving up needed information needed to gauge the danger of moving crude by rail. Several oil train accidents, including one in Quebec, have highlighted the explosive properties of crude coming from booming oil shale fields on the Northern Plains. (AP Photo/Surete du Quebec, via The Canadian Press, file) ORG XMIT: LA102

Our president is just fine with this as we don’t need to do things safely and more efficiently….

Washington elites need to go away…all of them… We need serious people, that love the country and you and I, who are looking out for “us the people….” Not their legacy or their benefactors…

The announcement at the global warming conference I am certain is a farce, and will be spun politically to make republicans look bad, and most assuredly will cost the citizens as they will have to pay for all of the upgrades and lack of fossil fuels. They will be the ones to watch factories moved over to countries that take no part in such folly, as this will further restrict and make more costly business ventures in this country. This will adversely affect our economy, even more greatly than the health care law which saw the demise of the American dream. More and more companies are working many part-time employees with few or no benefits and crappy salaries to avoid Obamacare. The employee than is forced into two part time jobs to make ends meet and oh yes, purchase their own health care or be fined.

An activist hold a poster during a demonstration near the Eiffel Tower, in Paris, Saturday, Dec.12, 2015 during the COP21, the United Nations Climate Change Conference. As organizers of the Paris climate talks presented what they hope is a final draft of the accord, protesters from environmental and human rights groups gather to call attention to populations threatened by rising seas and increasing droughts and floods. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

So we can all get together and sing Kumbia and ignore the JV team…

Once we fix global warming and find jobs for these folks they will know the love and all will be just fine…

We are being sent into battle with no weapons, our hands tied behind our backs and blindfolded by an administration that is either delusional, stupid … or bought and paid for by special interests. I would surmise that it is a combination of the three.

There is a pattern, a history of lies and I have pointed out a very few…. Watch something besides “Two Broke Girls or Modern Family…and you might accidentally learn something.

-Best

Vintage Radio’s

How about a post that has nothing political in it?
How about a post that is instructional and interesting?
Think I can do it?

Me personally, sometimes I feel like someone is going to have to develop a twelve step program to break the addiction of collecting and repairing these things. Truth be known some of these are highly collectable and some are well, just not.

I am guessing that if one saves them long enough the radios that are not collectable today will be at some point in the future.

To that end, I collect those that are “collectible” today as well as radio’s that are unique or sought after for some reason ie the Owl Radio from Clash of the Titans.

More often than not I will purchase a collection of radio’s from different sources. I might purchase the entire collection because one of the radio’s in that collection is collectable or I might get them because I need parts that I know they will render.

The bottom line is the case must be intact. It must look good with no cracks etc. If it is busted all to hell it turns into a parts piece and devalued substantially.

Today I worked on a radio that was marketed to the US although it is typically marketed to the Russians.

Spica — Repaired, aligned and cleaned up….

Someone had worked on it sometime in the past as the slugs were all out of place. I guess it is terribly irresistible to resist putting a screwdriver in the transformers and trimmer caps, as I get more radio’s that have been tweaked, by someone with a screwdriver, instead of the proper alignment tool.

Having said that this radio defies common logic, in that the wire colors that we come to expect over here in the states is backwards. Red which normally denotes positive, was the negative lead and of course that made the black wire positive.

When I first apply power to one of these radios I do so with a variable supply. Turning the radio on first, then slowly increasing the voltage from 0 to whatever the voltage should be whether it be 3,6 or 9 volts or somewhere in between. The trick is to have a power supply with an amp meter.

Most transistor radios draw very little current. If you start to raise the voltage and the current starts to jump and maybe hold at 10 milliamps or so, check your polarity.

Bottom line is that after I figured out that the power leads are opposite of what one might expect the next thing needed was an alignment.

In most radio’s like this you start with injecting a signal at 455khz. After tuning the proper transformer and trimmer cap for this, than I move on to tweaking the rest of them for maximum sensitivity at 1600, 55 and finally around 800khz.

The process takes less than a five minutes and when finished the radio is as good as new.

Most of these vintage electronics need new caps “electrolytic capacitors.” Caps made in the day were expensive so the manufacturers used the minimums that they could get by with. Tracing and/or injecting a signal one can usually tell which if any caps are bad, and within moments, have the audio back to where it should be.

Some of the newer capacitors on the market are NP or non-polarized! Too often I pull out and old cap to find I did not remember which direction to install the new one as I need to keep the negative and positive leg in the correct holes. With NP caps simply install them and move on.

I suggest that you take pictures before taking too much apart as without a print if a wire pops off, you can have a devil of a time figuring out where it went.

Six transistor radio’s are the most common and really all you need to pull in strong station and actually differentiate between the different stations without too much overlap.

Eight Transistor Radios have much better sensitivity and are able to differentiate strong stations from weak ones thus, you can have much better selectivity. My favorite radio to actually keep batteries in are the 8 transistor variety.

Some manufacturer’s in the day found that they could use the PN junction as a diode but yet claim that they had 10, 12 or even 16 transistors! The unknowing public equated that to the “jewels in a watch.” The more the better and so they had a gimmick until some government agency clamped down on them. If the transistor is being used as a diode it cannot be counted as a transistor.

Ross to name just one of the brands was one of the manufacturers that became famous for this tactic.

Shortly after Bell labs came out with the transistor Raytheon and a company named Idea came out with the first transistor radio. It was know as the Regency TR-1.

These are highly collectible even today. Around $100 might get you one that the case is basically in tact.

closeup_front_gray — This is a nice looking example of the TR-1

Before this portable radio’s were tube based and used two different batteries to play them. One of the I believe was a high voltage battery known as the “B” battery, and one drove the filaments and I think it was 1.5 volts.

I have a few of these but, with no availability of the B battery, I think that other than something to sit on a shelf; it is a waste of time and energy to collect. Your mileage may vary…

If I get enough interest I might post more radio stuff in the future as I work on many of these and it is a hobby.

See, no political rhetoric on this post, I can do it! 🙂

-Best and 73

Repairable light bulbs?

As an electronics guy, when something fails I like to figure out what failed and then why.

When lights fail, well they just fail!

Not so much with the CFL or LED variety.

led bulb taken by me — LED bulb with clear dome etched by some sort of out gassing from something.

Today I want to examine this bulb, an LED bulb that did not last the advertised amount of time by any stretch of the imagination.

The first thing to notice that there was some sort of out-gassing during its use which adhered to the inside of the plastic dome and actually etched the plastic in such a way that it is no longer translucent but rather opaque even after I cleaned it with 409.

The reason I pulled it apart is that it became dim.

Failed LED — Here you can see the electronics of the LED bulb and possibly you can see the loose leg of the electrolytic capacitor.

After disassembling it, I found that the electrolytic capacitor had become un-soldered on one of its legs.

Re-soldering it and re-assembling it, the bulb became bright again for about a minute until it flickered and quit.

LED — Same bulb flickering before second failure

Removing and testing the capacitors they were both in tolerance and I suspect OK.

Checking the LED’s one by one, I found one that was dead. As I tested each with a DVM the good LEDS would slightly illuminate. 98% of these when biased correctly would illuminate properly. One of them was much dimmer than the rest, and one of them would not light at all.

Failed LED bulb — Dead LED at the end of my thumb

If I were of the mind to, I could replace the dead LED and the dim LED and I would guess I would obtain more hours of life out of the collective bunch of LED’s

LED lights being in series to me says that when one fails, the light is dead and trashed. Much like that lousy string of Christmas lights that are a real bugger to keep going.

Does it make financial sense to “repair” light bulbs?
Will dead LED bulbs fill the garbage dumps with the same frequency of regular light bulbs or CFL bulbs?
The good news about LED bulbs is that there is no lead in the solder as it is Tin.

I would be interested in knowing what actually out-gassed from the light during its use?

What actually pitted or etched the plastic?

Looking closely you will see what looks like flux, that suggest that there is heat generated with use.

I am thinking about holding on to this bulb and when another like it fails, making one out of two, just because. Is my time worth more than this, of course it is! Does this interest me enough to prove a point? Yes.

While LED bulbs will save you cost in operation, will that cost be offset by the cost and reliability of the bulb? Even though there is a warranty on these bulbs as well as CFL bulbs, do you know anyone that puts a date on them when installed and then keeps up with the sales slip in case they don’t last the warranty?
I don’t think that you can prove much, and it would really be up to the benevolence of the store where you purchased them from to replace your product..

-Best

RATS and Right to Privacy

While some may find them cute and cuddly, and some, absolutely disgusting; this rat that I am speaking of is neither.

The rat that I want to educate about is really an acronym for Remote Access Trojan.

Just about everything electronic today has a built in camera. Not to mention a microphone.

Some smart TV’s actually have them built in to allow you to voice command the TV.

Your car may very well have something like this built in.

I have long held that our government could if they wanted, under some obscure interpretation of the Patriot Act, access your camera and or microphone to peek into your home. I have also thought that this could be done with the microphone and camera on most laptops and of course desktops that have them.

Not only is there news of the Feds hacking your cell phones and either listening in or downloading your contact list and other information through something called String Ray but there are theories that your local police may be doing this as well without a warrant! (1)

It is not enough that we may have our government spying on us without warrant but, we have Trojans that copy your keystrokes and send them to some server in Russia, or some other obscure third world country looking for passwords and banking information now we have RATS.

Today we know that perverted individuals out there have in fact used the cameras in laptops handed out by the school to indeed spy on kids in their bedrooms. While this made the news, little attention was really paid to this, as conspiracy nuts are everywhere.

(2) The Case in question

We now know that the Chinese among others have created Trojans that allow them remote access to your camera and or microphone in your laptop! Simply click on the wrong thing and the writer of the software has access to your machine.

One couple received a picture of themselves lying in bed watching a movie on Netflix. This came to them from someone using a made up name, via their Facebook page.

(3) Naked Security Story

You really have to be smart when you are cruising the internet and checking e-mail as the crooks and other creeps are smarter. I have often said that these folks are probably kids sitting around in their mother’s basement in their underwear, writing Trojans, seeing who can outdo the other via groups like Anonymous.

I would like to see devices like phones have an actual on off switch or removable customer replaceable battery. If you want to make certain that the thing is off, remove the power. Apple has made this task about impossible for the everyday user and that is problematic. Placing the device in airplane mode might be your closest bet to protecting your privacy but I would bet that there is a work around for that.

I would also like to see on off switches on cameras and microphones that absolutely can be switched off until required.

The simple truth is we have no idea what these phones are doing in the background and with viruses and Trojans, we have no idea when some remote access Trojan will activate or be activated by some creep in some basement somewhere.

Someone write an app that tells you what the phone is dong or has done.

When you sit back and think that I am a crazy conspiracy nut, I would remind you of the porn scanners that are still in use at some airports today.

full-body-scanner-image — Yes, if you invert the negative with any cheap software you get a positive…

Who in their right mind would think that it is ok to use ionizing radiation to undress the public by the tens of thousands for the purpose of what, looking for weapons? We are so politically correct that we can’t profile but we can strip search the public, grope grandma and feel up children! Political Correctness is a way to control the masses and not something that we should be doing as a people. We have free speech, and other than yelling fire in a theater or threatening to kill someone, I would not surrender the first amendment for anything!

Did you read about the whistle blower who worked for the TSA and admitted that it was a big joke to watch people stripped of their clothing and then make remarks and jokes about what they saw? (4) (5)

If I could have any job in the world, currently it would be to be in some position of authority at the TSA! I would love to clean that bunch of people up and while I am at it, assist them with security as currently they are loath to do much right, of course it is the government so …. What do you expect?! They need folks who think outside the box and currently they have a bunch of automatons.

The news media commonly carried stories about the TSA scanner as equivalent to being at altitude for a couple of hours. The lying bastards however did not tell the truth. While pilots do suffer more cases of skin cancers than non-pilots as cosmic radiation is more intense at altitude, it is not the same as ionizing radiation.

To further exacerbate the privacy issue you are undoubtedly aware that cameras are everywhere. You must assume that wherever you are, or whatever you are doing, there may be a camera watching you. Every red light contains cameras that I maintain can and do look at people in cars collecting bio metric data, looking for who is doing what when. These are not the low end cameras that you can buy on-line, these are high end cameras that have good quality optics.

How about some of these cameras:

st-sony640-dvr — There is a wifi enabled camera in there. Have you seen these in your hotel room perhaps?

These are just a scant few. These things are tiny and easily concealed. Assume that you have no privacy. If you scratch it in public, chances are someone saw you.

Orwell was ahead of his time, and you my friends need to be aware of this, and act accordingly.

(1) http://thehackernews.com/2015/04/police-spying-cell-phones.html

(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School_District

(3) https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/08/14/webcam-spy-sends-couple-photos-of-previous-nights-netflix-snuggle-session/

(4) http://mountainrepublic.net/2012/12/24/ex-tsa-screener-officers-laughing-at-your-naked-image/

(5) https://takingsenseaway.wordpress.com/2012/12/19/letter-from-a-passenger-what-really-happens-in-the-tsa-private-room/

-Best

Cancer, the final frontier…

As a young person I was fascinated by the movie Fantastic Voyage which was released in 1966 as a medical Sci-Fi. The people of the day had some great imaginations.

As I age, I know too many people with cancer of some sort.

Working in Houston Texas for some time, I spent 15 years in the Texas Medical Center working with all sorts of Doctors and other health care professionals, from many different specialties.

The Texas Medical Center photographed on Thursday, May 23, 2013, in Houston. Texas Children's Hospital is in the foreground. ( Smiley N. Pool / Houston Chronicle ) — The Texas Medical Center photographed on Thursday, May 23, 2013, in Houston. Texas Children’s Hospital is in the foreground. ( Smiley N. Pool / Houston Chronicle )

Some things I witnessed, still haunt me in my dreams; and that was some time ago. Occasionally something will stir a vison or a memory from some rogue smell which, will catapult me back to those days of working in the bowels of the medical center, and different hospitals.

Still yet, some things which are puzzling; stay just below the surface of my conscious while I am supposedly there at dinner with friends or watching something on TV or even reading a book, or writing this as I am now, some puzzles are “back ground tasking.”

This morning I was reading about a friend of mine going through cancer treatment when it hit me, most likely we all have cancer cells running around our body.

Cancer cells and “oncologist correct me if I am mistaken” are nothing more than cells that have mutated via an error in the genetic instructions either given to it or, it mis-understood them and erroneously created a cell that is flawed in some way.

When we hear of a cancer we hear of it like “they had cancer of the X.” Fill in the blanks with whatever was effected by the cancer whether it be the breast or prostate or brain or what have you.

The problem with cancer is that we don’t detect it until it has made millions of cells that are duplicates of screwed up cells. The millions of cells turn in to what we know as tumors which are really nothing more than globs of screwed up cells that don’t know how to assimilate into the body so they form a tumor.

What causes this mis-communication between cells can be blamed on many things from smoking to cosmic radiation.

Cancer needs to be addressed at the genetic level and for that we must necessarily understand the genome in its entirety. Once we understand what each little bit of the genome does we can look for errant cells and target them with something like a virus, yes a manmade virus that looks for specific types of cells and kills them.

That technology is in our future but I believe that is where we need to go to stop cancer and other diseases like aids and even the common cold.

My issue with this frankly is our technology always seems to outpace our humanity.

While some doctors in some lab are thinking that they are saving the world, some military minded megalomaniac wants to know how it can be used as a weapon.

This ought to make the generals feel happy... — This ought to make the generals feel happy…

Can we make a virus that only effects the blood type of a certain people or animal or pick your target.

Maybe you want to create a herbicide that only kills a certain plant so you modify this virus to attack the cells or genetics of that particular plant.

The problem is of course that these things mutate and thus are unstable, and thus on the loose can wreak havoc much like the plague or other flu related pandemics of our history. Ebola is one such virus that needs no introduction. Any virus created must contain an expiration date. It must die on its own accord and must be stable.

The cure for cancer and other such diseases I firmly believe will be created in a lab by someone who thinks outside the box.

Most probable this cure will take lives before it cures them, much like radiation took so many lives before it played a part in curing them.

Understanding the genome will open the doors for many opportunities. Stop the aging process and allow people to live really long times. Is that a good thing? I am not certain.

Arrest diseases which currently ravage our humanity in ways that we live with currently but; in decades to come some historian will write: can you believe that people died of things like the flue? How backward!

Friends, some of us are indeed backwards. Those that would seek to weaponized things like the “genome” are backwards.

Those that think that they are somehow special and better than others to the degree of wishing others harm, are backwards.

Great care needs to be applied when exploring the virus that will end up being a cure for such things as all living things on this planet share parts of the genome.

When we understand it, we will see that parts of the human genome contain things that are found in other animals and even the plants.

You can use this argument for evolution or God and creation. I could argue it either way. I tend to believe that there is intelligence in the design of everything that we see so, the scientist in me believes that there is a creator of all things; and we simply don’t understand or comprehend why….

“Cancer the final frontier” is really a misnomer but, it is the beginning of, and the driving force for what will end up either being the salvation of man on this planet, or its demise.

-Best

http://www.guard-protect.com

CFL, LED Revisited

Big corporations really suck when they go the extra mile forcing one to buy expensive stuff.

Under the guise of “saving the planet” we have lost it!

First off let me just rant a little about the planet. The Earth has been around 4.5 billion years. Man has been around for about 6 million of those years but, we only have we been a “threat” to the planet the last 150 years or so.

When I say threat, not really. One lucky strike from a meteor and we are done! Toast, the next life form to take hold will hopefully be more evolved than some of our peers who think money is the answer to everything no matter who they screw!

Industrialization is claimed to be the largest threat to the planet along with the ever increasing population. I agree that millions of people all creating waste emissions from gasses to solids, probably are not doing the earth any good but, do you really for just one minute think that one Volcano, or large fire does not do as much if not more damage to the eco-system than man?

There is a super volcano that is due to erupt any moment in Yellow stone park. When that bad boy goes off it will be a life changer!

Then tell me about coal power plants or Gas guzzling SUv’s.

Despite High Emissions, New Coal Power Plants Planned in Germany...AACHEN, GERMANY - MAY 15: Behind the open-pit coal mine Gartzweiler exhaust rises from cooling towers at the lignit coal-fired power stations Frimmersdorf, Neurath and Niederaussem May 15, 2007 near Aachen, Germany. The four German major energy providers Vattenfall, RWE, E.on and EnBW plan to invest more than 30 billion euros in construction and infrastructure of cole conducted power plants in Germany. (Photo by Ralph Orlowski/Getty Images) — Despite High Emissions, New Coal Power Plants Planned in Germany…AACHEN, GERMANY – MAY 15: Behind the open-pit coal mine Gartzweiler exhaust rises from cooling towers at the lignit coal-fired power stations Frimmersdorf, Neurath and Niederaussem May 15, 2007 near Aachen, Germany. The four German major energy providers Vattenfall, RWE, E.on and EnBW plan to invest more than 30 billion euros in construction and infrastructure of cole conducted power plants in Germany. (Photo by Ralph Orlowski/Getty Images)

Yes, we are burning fossil fuels “dinosaurs” to heat and cool our homes and to drive our gas burning vehicles to and from the job and what have you.

If you really want to solve global warming first you really need to get truthful with the numbers, and facts, as what has been published thus far is to push a “carbon credit agenda” to make the rich richer and in the end is simply another tax!

Now, back to bulbs.

Edison through trial and error “brute force” came up with an incandescent light bulb.

The typical light in your home burns 60 watts of electricity.

It took me a few minutes to do the math for you, so here it is in a spreadsheet.

You can do any further multiplication you like, as in how many of these bulbs do you have and how long do you really leave them on.

The 100 and the 60 are representing incandescent “old school” bulbs.

The 12 is representing a CFL bulb and the 3 watt is representing the LED variety.

Basing the cost per kilowatt hour at 8.5 cents, this is what it would look like to run one bulb for a year never turning it off.

So, if you want to save the earth…or money, lets look at how and where you would put what kind of bulb.

defective GE bulb — Here is the bulb that failed prematurely. Notice the black around the inside of the plastic. This thing got hot before it stopped working and the important part of this is that the fuse did not blow!

I also think that we were pushed into using them by congress via some backroom deal with GE or some other maker of these things through the good folks at AVE K, you know lobbyist. Like republicans or not, this was a GW Bush thing and I think it smells.

CFL or any fluorescent bulb must stay on for a minimum of 15 minutes or you shorten the life of the bulb. That means, don’t put them in places that you turn the light on for a few moments and then off again. CFL or fluorescent tubes should go into places that you energize them, and then leave them on for hours, like a kitchen, family room or porch light.

This bulb died because the capacitor died. If you look at it you will see that it has bubbled up on the top. Checking the capacitor it is non functional.

GE must have purchased a plethora of bad capacitors from China!

If you look at the actual glass you will notice that there is no black around the base, this bulb died way too young…

LED bulbs don’t just quit “usually” unlike an incandescent of fluorescent. They grow dim over time as they age and one day you will notice that it is not very bright, and replace it. I like them in bathrooms and closets, desk lights and lights in areas where I don’t want a lot of heat generated.

LED bulb replacing CFL bulb which replaced an incandescent bulb.

The average cost of a CFL or LED bulb however is much higher than its incandescent counterpart.

While they have come down in price, they are still no where as inexpensive as an incandescent.

A box of 4 or even 6 on sale, was around $1. The CFL is around $2 each but that is now. When they first came out they were about $4 each. As other manufacturers entered into the arena the price came down.

The same is true of LED bulbs. These bulbs can get downright pricey!

As far as function goes we have the incandescent with fewest complications. A filament across the two electrodes sealed into a vacuum. Apply the right voltage and suitable current that the filament will light and there will be light, and heat!

Fluorescent is much more complex in that there is two filaments and high voltage applied which ionizes the gas inside. This gas reacts to the phosphorescent coating inside the bulb making light, And oh yes, they have mercury in them.

The CFL takes in 110 or 220 depending upon your location and converts it into the voltages and currents needed to start the process as well as maintain the process while voltage is applied. If you look inside the base of a CFL bulb you will see a host of associated circuitry to accomplish this task.

LED Bulbs are less complex in that they use minimal components to convert the voltages into the needed voltages to run the LED’s.

There is not much heat and the circuitry is not complex. LED bulbs should really be less expensive than CFL and I look for that to be the case as time marches on. Currently you are still paying for the novelty much like the early adopters of flat screen TV’s.

Pay attention to these bulbs when you buy them as they must be set up for “dimmable” circuits if you intend to use them in a legacy lighting system that had incandescent lighting in it.

It is up to you, do the math!

-Best

Black Holes, a possible explanation

Black Holes, a possible explanation

Without understanding all of the math associated with celestial mechanics writers like myself can take liberty with physics and often devise something like the flux capacitor to make up a good story.

The simple facts are that most people don’t understand the math either, so a garbage eating capacitor that makes time travel possible, entertains the masses, and allows those of us who understand physics, “to some degree,” to shift our brains into idle and simply enjoy the story.

Not being constrained by the math also makes it easier for us who “think outside the box” to do so as we are not locked into the math.

We can say “what if,” and get there leaving the folks with the slide rules, and what have you, to work out the details.

$14363621-Doodle-Blackboard-Stock-Vector-math-complex-chalkboard$

Quantum physics confused many who are no longer with us, including Einstein, because it does not play by the rules, as we understand them.

Black holes fascinate me, not because I enjoy the idea of “spaghettification,” or the “noodle effect,” but rather “how is this possible?”

Weather is a phenomena that I understand pretty well. I do storm spotting and while I have no interests in chasing tornadoes, well not to get too close anyway; I do appreciate the how’s and whys of weather.

The middle of the vortex is a low pressure area, simple as that.

When water runs down the drain you get a vortex. Depending upon the hemisphere that you are in, it either goes clockwise or counterclockwise.

Now look again at the galaxy.

From one perspective it appears that the vortex is moving in a counterclockwise rotation, dragging all of the material in the “cloud,“ with it. If we witnessed it from “down under” (as our friends in Australia witness the drain,) we too might assume that it is indeed rotating clockwise.

What is a black hole?

I am guessing it is an area of “low pressure.”

That idea is fascinating because then it begs the question of what pressure? We know space is a perfect vacuum but, what if the center of a black hole is a “super vacuum!”

So out here at the edge of the Milky Way, we are rotating around the center of a huge drain, our speed regulated by the size and strength of the black hole.

What regulates the size and strength of the black hole itself?
Where does the stuff that the black hole eats, go?

What if, the action of the black hole pulls up all of these gasses and dust that make up the galaxy, and by it coalescing around the black hole, instead of just floating around aimlessly cause these materials to “gel” together via gravity, and thus we have galaxies instead of space occupied by random dust particles? What if the black hole actually gives order to things?

What if the big bang that we theorize as the start of things, was really a huge sucking sound? Of course sound is a metaphor as there is no sound in a vacuum.

No Big Bang, just a lot of sucking!

Somehow, quantum physics and the Higgs Boson come into play here. Speculation leads this writer to think that the “stuff,” may go into another dimension or multiverse. The Black Hole being regulated by the pressures inside that other dimension. If the other dimension is the “anti-dimension,” perhaps the black hole is the result of matter and anti-matter coming into to contact with one another, causing a void in the space time fabric of space.

One might think that such an interaction might end up with a “white hole” and just perhaps, in that other dimension, the hole is indeed white, spewing out those other particles that Einstein called, “spooky.” Possibly, if we went there; we would find Schrödinger’s cat!

Leave me your thoughts, I am interested in different opinions and thoughts.

If you enjoy my blog, pass it around, tell others!

-Best to you and those that you care about!

www.guard-protect.com

Is our government killing us with Aluminum Nanites?

“Aluminum Nanites being spread by rogue government operatives at 50,000 ft. leaving chem-trials. The objectives are to change the earth’s weather to a cooler climate and when these nanites hit the ground they are eaten or absorbed by humans and then activated through microwave technology via HAARP to control you much like the pod people. “

Film at 11:00

I am not sure that this would even compete with Sharknado on the SCI-Fi channel but, the looney websites and blogs that post this kind of stuff are teaming with ads to sell you prepper stuff, and more paranoid stories for as much as you care to read.

Not too long ago I was confronted with the FEMA story and how they have these camps set up all over the place, and they have ordered thousands of coffins and body bags. The plan is at some point to round up everyone and put them into the “camps” and then cut their heads off!

Here, buy these MRE’s and all of this other prepper stuff and be ready to bugout so that you can keep your head!

I am a science fiction writer and this stuff does not even make fodder for a bad story line much less something to write about.

Let me “Snopes” this for you. “Snopes as a verb, who knew?”

At high altitude, the air is damned cold, somewhere between -40 and -50 degrees below 0. Any exhaust from aircraft will leave a contrail. Depending upon barometric pressures and temperatures and water moisture the con trials can last longer and be denser than on scalding dry days with little moisture in the atmosphere. With enough air traffic, they can form a high layer of clouds.

There are thousands of flights a day so yes, con trials can appear to create clouds!

Nanites or the term nanite, borrowed from Star Gate and or Star Trek.

They do not exist now nor have they ever existed. If you want to see for yourself, clean a container really good and then set it out in the rain. After the storm use a sterile eye dropper or straw and capture any sediment from the bottom of the jar/container and place it under a microscope. You will find pollen, dirt and a myriad of things but what you won’t find is microscopic machines waiting to be activated by HAARP.

HAARP works at lower frequencies, not microwave as suggested in articles all over the net. Microwave is line of sight ; therefore, you can even see that this claim is Bogus!

“White planes with no markings flying at high altitude flown by Chinese people are spraying these toxic chemicals making chemtrails. “

There are some solid white planes used to bring folks into and out of Area 51. Well, mostly white other than that big red stripe. They, however, do have registration, and I am confident that the pilots are not all of the Chinese descent. Since this is a secure area, the pilots would be American with security clearance.

n4529w2 — Janet Airlines getting people to work to and from AREA 51 at Vegas

How can you tell these planes are all white with no markings flying at 50,000 feet? All planes at high altitude have no distinguishable markings. Going past that how do you come to the conclusion that they are Chinese folks doing this?

“So you are telling me that these white streaks from jets are not chemicals.”

Nope, they are indeed chemicals in the strictest of sense in that they contain mostly ice from water vapor that immediately freezes at high altitudes. There is also some carbon dioxide, smoke, small amounts of hydrocarbons (unburnt fuel), oxides and nitrogen and carbon monoxide.

So, if you want to call them chemtrails instead of contrails technically you would have a point as there is chemistry in them but, not in the paranoid sense that the people that want you to buy MRE’s are touting.

On to FEMA camps.

So the government has these FEMA camps all over the country ready to round up folks and cut their heads off.

Let’s work this one backward shall we?

Throughout history when some government of radical leader wanted to commit genocide they killed folks in an expeditious manner and then either left them for the animals to eat or placed them in mass graves. They did not put them in coffins and give them a nice burial. They were ruthless people and could not care a damned about who they were slaughtering. Does it make any sense to you that the government would cut off your head and then give you beautiful funeral?

I would not be surprised to see these camps “if they exist” housing undocumented migrants of certain age groups and sex until they can be processed.

When there is a lack of information people will invent it.

What is the real purpose of AREA 51?
What exactly is HAARP?
What are these FEMA camps?
Is there a government cover-up regarding UFO’s?

Because there is an extreme lack of transparency on these issues, it is easy to understand how so much time and speculation could be spent on these subjects.

Let’s employ a little common sense.

My guess is that Area 51 is a place to test long range and experimental aircraft that they want to keep a secret, not so much from the public but from those that would like to steal our technology.

I think HAARP is some experimental site that uses low frequency to heat up the ionosphere for reasons that only they know. When radio waves skip from one part of the earth to the other, off of some layer of the ionosphere, they do so by bumping into molecules of air that have been ionized by solar photons or cosmic rays. Depending upon the layer affected the signal could be absorbed or refracted making long distant over the horizon communication possible without satellites.

I would guess that communications of some sort come into play with HAARP, but unless I get an invite to see for myself, that is as close as I can come.

We could speculate and guess that they are using RF to ionize the lower layer of the ionosphere thus causing it to absorb or scatter RF at certain frequencies, instead of allowing it to bounce off of the atmosphere.

I doubt that there is any nefarious activity regarding weather control or brain wave control going on so you can put the tin foil hat back over the ham in the oven.

The simple truth is that we do have a government that is far from transparent with more cover ups than Houdini ever thought of. Most of them involve embarrassments as so many have done so much to taint our election process, spreading propaganda through smear campaigns and yes, using the IRS to target conservative groups because they could not win on their own merits.

It is very easy to see how the public could concoct such stories and unfortunately fall prey to hucksters selling prepper type stuff.

Let’s for a minute indulge the paranoid among us.

The technology that the government has is incredible. If they were to become third world, rogue banana republic kind of thing, would give you the prepper no chance. If they were to round up everyone, it would only mean that your incarceration would take a day or two longer than those who willingly walked into the van, or bus or what have you.

Even if you had guns, their guns, and weapons are so much more advanced than anything you can buy today. It is laughable that people are buying guns and ammo to protect themselves from their government.

A more likely scenario is that the infrastructure breaks down as it did in Baltimore or Ferguson, and you need to escape the fray. Having some plan with medicines and what have you already packaged would be a good thing.

Three days supplies ready to go with flashlights, radios, water, MRE’s and Medicines would not be a bad idea in case there is a problem with the infrastructure from man-made or natural causes.

-Live long and prosper

-Best

West Nile and You

For the last several years West Nile has made the news.

West Nile virus is a mosquito-borne zoonotic arbovirus belonging to the genus Flavivirus in the family Flaviviridae. This flavivirus is found in temperate and tropical regions of the world.

Zoon: Greek for Animal
Arbovirus: Group of viruses
Flavivirus: The name of the group or genus of viruses that contain or include the West Nile virus, dengue virus, tick-borne encephalitis virus, yellow fever virus, and several other viruses which may cause encephalitis.
Flaviviridae: family of viruses typically spread by tics or mosquitoes.

You….

What can you do to a: protect yourself and your family and B: the community in which you live?

Someone told me that there were not that many mosquitoes in my area to worry about anything other than myself. Use pesticides with Deet to protect myself and don’t worry about it.

I however did not believe them, and I also care about my neighbors; and the small animals that live outdoors and become food for those winged vampires of the night!

I installed not one but two bug zappers in my back yard.

Each bug zapper is good for an acre and my back yard is rather small city sized lot.

After one night of operation here are the results:

dead mosquitoes — Bug zapper 1 after one night

dead bugs — Bug zapper II twenty five feet from bug zapper 1

So, now what can you do?

Buy a bug zapper or two and install them, especially if you are in an area with West Nile.

They are on eBay, Amazon and a host of other places and if your hold your mouth right the local hardware store may actually have them, I would not count on that however.

The trick is that these things attract bugs. You know “go to the light…..”

So you need to hang them far enough from your door that they actually draw them away from your house.

Nope, they are not cheap. Anywhere from $50 to $80. What is your health worth?

-Best

PS. Are you itching yet? I am just looking at this…. ZAP!

Update 6/11/15

I have no idea who besides me is interested in this such as this but…..

The next day both bug zapper were about half full... No biggie; use compressed air and blow out the dead mozzies and put the zappers back in place.

Expecting that they would not be as full today I could not have been more wrong.

Today …Day 3 of the great bug barbecue the zappers were both chock-a-block full of fried Mozzies!

Today the newest Zapper arrived, I replaced the oldest with a “clog-proof model.”

Tomorrow will most undoubtedly bring more Fried Mozzies but will there be less, or more or about the same….?

Yes, Mosquitoes were harmed during the making of this blog!

Yes, there were a few other critters that met their maker as well but 99% were mosquitoes!

Stay tuned for more Mozzy mayhem…..

-Best

www.guard-protect.com

Skin Cancer and the 11 year Cycle

Skin Cancer and the 11 year Cycle

I like to tie things together, to figure out the cause and effect.

In my line of work we call this a “root cause analysis.”

Skin cancer awareness has piqued the interest of the news media outlets, as well as the general population.

While I don’t discount the monetary reasons for this with all kinds of expensive potions and lotions, I do think that there is more to it than that. The snake oil sales folks are simply capitalizing on a solution to a problem that may not even be a solution, just simply a prophylactic, much like an expensive sugar pill.

History is rife with such individuals and while their products may provide a modicum of protection, there are certain parts of this conundrum that thousands of miles of solid rock can’t stop!

Cancer, not just skin cancer but cancer itself is nothing more than the instructions from the DNA being either misunderstood or the instructions “code” has been modified in some way by something, either a mutagen of some sort or, there was simply an error in the replication process.

We “think” that toxins cause cancer but I really don’t think they have a clear understanding of how. Whether it be from out-gassing from some plastic product, or fire retardant chemical or from synthetic vitamins or even the prescription drugs that we consume daily. There are those that want to tar and feather Monsanto for their work in genetic modifications of food.

Monsanto — Actually we need this type of research if we are going to feed the population of this planet.

Focusing on Skin Cancer however; that bespeaks of something either contacting it, or something ingested which manifest itself there in the epidermis.

Since I have no government grant to fully investigate this, I want to focus on radiation.

radiation-symbol — We spent millions on Turtle tunnels but something like this..You got to be kidding!

We are exposed to radiation from many different sources from things as simple as dental x-rays to the glow in the hands on your old wind up clock. (Radium)

Skin cancer has been found on 2400 year old Mummies from Peru, pretty sure that there were no plastic bottles or pesticides or dental x-rays back then, so how did it happen?

Naturally occurring radiation on this planet and…the sun and even cosmic radiation from outer space from things like gamma ray bursters, collapsing stars or any host of things left over from the big-bang could be responsible.

Because we travel, we cannot tie down specific geography to cancer. It would be interesting to see if they could find more such mummies or early cancers on folks who were not traveling more than 35 miles from where they were born, to determine if there are indeed “hot spots.”

Having said that, let’s simply focus on the sun for a moment which, is the nearest and most consistent generator of different types of radiation.

While UV light is blamed for so much of the skin cancer we see today, I would proffer that is only partially true. The Climate change proponents would have you believe that Freon and other types of CFC’s are destroying the ozone layer which allows UV light in. While the gasses that make our atmosphere restrict the passage of UV light they allow the visible spectrum in. Ozone is one such gas.

UV light is what causes a sunburn. If you go to a tanning Solon the tanning beds emit what, UV light.

So can a sunburn or mild exposure to the visible light spectrum and UV light cause skin cancer?

Again what is cancer?

An abnormal cell which divides and replicates incorrectly, a cell that either did not understand the instruction given to it or, a cell that was given incorrect instructions.

The truth of the matter is that our skin is a miracle much like the plants that we depend upon for oxygen and the sugars and starches that they create by taking in sunlight and using it through a process called photosynthesis.

Our skin takes in sunlight and…. Creates Vitamin D. The body has natural processes which keep us from overdosing on it, unlike what might happen with synthetic vitamins. Too much of a good thing is what, a toxin.

While we were designed “or evolved” to take advantage of the sun, much like the plants I would have to believe that UV light in moderation is no more of a “mutagen” than toast.

The sun emits the whole spectrum of radiation from radio waves to gamma rays. While “normal sun operation” does not allow too many gamma rays to leave; solar flares are another story and why I have titled this piece …and the 11 year cycle…!

We really need people who think outside the box, and there are damned few of them!

I have no clue how one gets government grants to fund research but I think a study needs to be done to either disprove what I am about to allege or, prove it so we can all be more intelligent with our actions.

It is my supposition that when the sun is most active, as it is now; and has been for a year or two, more gamma rays and other high energy particles make it through our atmosphere and cause genetic damage to people’s skin as well as other living things like plants.

roserosettediease — This is rampant Right now here in Texas! Is there a correlation between this and skin cancers rise?

We know for a fact that pilots have more skin cancers than people who don’t fly..why? At 40 thousand feet or so there is less absorbing or refracting material to keep high energy particles away from the earth so they are bombarded with cosmic radiation, much like you and I when we fly. The skin of the airplane does not stop them. Our folks on the space station are constantly bombarded and this is a real danger to astronauts and space travel! Someone needs to invent a shield for them. Where is Scotty when we need him?

Does that mean we are safe on the ground? No, the amounts are lower and I suspect that the closer to sea level you are, the lower the rates of high energy particles from the sun will get to you. It has to do with the size of the particle and what it might bump into as it travels to earth.

You say but the earth’s magnetic shield deflects all that…. No, not all…most, but not all.

Another interesting study might be to study those that live in the path of the Aurora Borealis or Aurora Australia’s. Are there more cases of cancer there, or less? What other factors might come into play? Food comes to mind… The angle of the sun and the fact that it is cold so they wear more clothes. No nude sunbathers in the arctic circle! So if Skin cancers were higher that would bespeak of high energy particles vs UV light, right? If they had them at all that would still tell a story…

My guess is that when there is a solar storm or flare, that high energy particles across the spectrum are released and simply hit the earth and all those who are out in the sun. The folks at higher elevations probably get more of it than those who live at sea level.

Most probably and in conclusion; not only should we as a people pay attention to our local weather when we go outdoors and or plan activities but, we might also want to pay attention to the suns weather.

What you have just read is completely my work and it could be “crazy talk” or …just maybe it could be fodder for conversation from those who study this stuff.

If research were done, I am certain that with control groups and so forth that a correlation could be made between the suns activity and skin cancer but, that will take years as the sun goes through the cycles of activity every 11 years.

Because some government would want involvement that would stall the process decades for the bureaucrats to all poke holes in the air with their fingers and add pork, just because.

In the meantime let’s assume that what I am proposing makes some sense so; don’t go nude sunbathing when there are solar storms! Wear those expensive lotions and potions, just in case one of them actually does something! Use some common sense….

Dermatologist who have been in practice for eons might look through their history and research the kinds of cancers and frequencies (timing) of them and how those correlate to the solar activity chart posted earlier in this article.

www.timedok.com

www.guard-protect.com

Thoughts, comments, government money to research this?

-Best