Krebs Cast #24 Late Night Ramblings
A congrats to my mom for winning teacher of the year, hybrid vehicles, coral death and other cool blog/podcasting stuff. Just go with it.
206-600-KREB
Krebs Cast #24
Krebs Cast Page
Oh also, I would love if you would subscribe to me in iTunes and submit some reviews in iTunes for the show as well. Its really easy and as always, free! Click on my podcast artwork in the sidebar to subscribe in iTunes.
Krebs Cast #24
Krebs Cast Page
Oh also, I would love if you would subscribe to me in iTunes and submit some reviews in iTunes for the show as well. Its really easy and as always, free! Click on my podcast artwork in the sidebar to subscribe in iTunes.
posted by Adam at 12:00 AM
4 Comments:
I know you switched to libsyn. Would love to talk about this. I am still with PodOMatic but am frustrated with my limited bandwidth.
Another nice podcast. Give my congrats to mom on the win - she's a great teacher and it's so completely deserved!
Many good points as always, Adam.
A few things I've picked up on:
1) Oil and the Middle East: The Middle East issues are so much more complicated than the buying and selling of oil. Unfortunately, even if we were able to completely detach ourselves from petroleum, it would not affect the economic issues - the trading of oil in $USD. That is the principle reason we are invading the middle east: it's not so much about stopping terrorism or radical Islam; nor is it about nukes or other WMDs... nor is it so much about Israel (that is a big part, but not the overriding concern).
It is about NOT trading oil in Euros. Had either Iraq or Iran decided to set up thier oil markets as planned, they would have destroyed the (extremely weak and nearly worthless) US Dollar.
The Dollar... underpins the global economy. As powerful as the Euro is (and remember, it too is also a fiat currency, not backed by any security like gold or platinum).
Were some OPEC country acheive success in forcing the oil markets to trade in Euros, the resulting dump of dollars would utter destabilise this nation, and bring much ruin to countries and other entities that finance the US: with a marketplace full of useless dollars, not even the Euro would successfully fill the role of the Dollar in a short scale of time.
As for petroleum products and the approach of Peak Oil (and I know, I really have a hard-on for this, but it bugs the SH*T out of me...) every time I go to the supermarket, I no longer see food, but mountains of plastic, styrofoam, and more plastic. I can't even buy the organic eggs I like without them being packaged in half a pound of plastic.
I mean, am I being a nut here? Am I unreasonable my thinking?
We don't need Globalisation - that is failing us. We need Localisation: Local farms, supporting local communities, with short delivery and preservation times. Glass jars! Stuff we can easily re-use and re-package... stuff our grandparents used!!
Have we not survived - and with some respectable standard of living - for over ten millennia WITHOUT petroleum and plastics?
Even more so now, with the greater understanding of science and the like!!
Disgusting! And then you mention the medical industry? Good God, what will become of us when THERE IS NO MORE OIL TO MAKE ALL THIS DAMNED PLASTIC?
Maybe I have OCD about Peak Oil, but this is a Damoclean Sword over our heads.
2) This ties into what you said about organic food. Why can we not produce our food locally, setting up farmer's markets. If we were to grow our food, ORGANICALLY, using time proven techniques of sustainable farming, not this crazy soil depleting power-farming BS we have now... growing food within a 30km radius of the community it supports.
Organic food, organic feedstocks, and and healthy chickens that don't break their legs or have chemical feed tubes shoved down thier throats...
3) Community is a HELLUVA good thing. We really need to get back in touch with our neighbors, and not just ignore those people next to us. Malign the Arabs all you want, but they do have one thing we definitely lack: the neighborhood coffe house where folks can come together and talk thier hearts and exchange ideas.
No, not us! We are content to sit on our fat asses watching "Desperate fricking Housewives" or those (mostly) talentless hacks on Am-Idol .
Ick. Once again, I'm sorry for turning this into a rant... but you are dead-on with a lot of what you say.
And bear in mind that these issues are bigger than just anyone one "community" - this affects us as a nation and a human race.
Alrighty, I have some bio questions for you (though they might be far, far too geeky to answer on your blog).
1) What's up with inulin? Why do some plants store energy as inulin instead of starch? What does inulin synthesis involve? Where does it take place, i.e. is it in plastids like starch would be? WTF?
2) I know where ATP is synthesized but what about GTP and CTP which are needed for lots of cell cycle regulation? What's going on with TTP? It seems like TTP isn't used for any kind of regulation...is there something about thymine that makes it a bad candidate?
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