ALBACON, www.albacon.org , has its hotel for 2010: Best Western Sovereign Hotel – Albany, 1228 Western Ave., Albany, NY 12203; +1-518-489-2981; http://www.sovereignhotels.com/ .
We hope to have on-line registration up and running real soon now. Y’all come. We give good con! Allen Steele is our Literary Guest of Honor.
I had a very good weekend. It started off with a huge turkey lunch en route to Rochester at my favorite turkey restaurant. The con went well. Met old friends and made new ones. Did a couple panels, judged the masquerade, chatted with folk about my no fuel/no waste power source, got too little sleep, etc. – If you are anywhere near Rochester next NOV, you might think about the con. – Hey, it is almost as good as ALBACON. 
Illegality drives up the cost of the illegal substance. – What would the actual cost, with a 6% markup to provide a suitableprofit, of the more common “illegal” substance such as MJ, cocaine, & heroine? — Please note, I’m NOT saying they should be legal, just what would the comparative prices be?
Now how would this effect the crime lords? If an addict, one would have to register, of course, could buy his or her drug of choice from a legal source at realistic prices, what would happen to the economies of drug producing countries. [Of course, California would now run a surplus as the value of MJ grown in the state is in the billions of dollars.
It would be interesting to see an economic evaluation of this. maybe money is being allocated in the wrong areas.
G’day, if you like the concept suggested here, please feel free to pass it on to friends and any and all politicians. We all need energy regardless of political persuasion.
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Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
Dear Governor Schwarzenegger: 3 September 2009
California needs more energy as well as a need for more jobs. Combining these areas with an alternate, renewable energy producer may be of interest
To improve California’s energy position, and provide jobs in the “green” sector, I would like to bring to your attention and that of the California Energy Commission the concept of the Solar Updraft Tower, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower .
“In 1903, Isidoro Cabanyes first proposed the concept of a solar chimney in the magazine “Electrical Energy.”
In 1982 an experimental tower was built in Manzanares, Spain, about 150 km/95 miles south of Madrid. While intended to only operate for approximately 3 years, it did in fact produce up to 50kW until 1989. http://www.except.nl/consult/SolarUpdraftTower/solar_updraft_research.html
This paper suggests some quite interesting variations on how to develop and use the concept.
Unlike a lot of experimental technology, this one has produced power. The research data is available for study and advancement.
My suggestion to you is that California make use of this technology to produce power for the state’s energy users. I’m not unaware that the initial tower[s] will be part experimental, part power producer and part of the energy grid for California.
The capital costs for such projects will most likely be high, though the upkeep and maintenance of the Solar Updraft Towers will be quite low. My concept for a tax break, and to increase the incentive to build such a project, would be to allow a company to write off the capital expenses in, say 5 years, using accelerated depreciation. This assumes the Solar Updraft Tower would be built to last & produce power for 40 years.
Where to put the towers? I would suggest the desert portions of San Bernardino county for a start or jointly with neighboring states. The project, as I envision it, would consist of a series of towers each larger than the previous: 10 MW, 100 MW, 500 MW, 1 GW & 10 GW. Each succeeding tower would initiate construction about 3 years after ground is broken for the previous tower. These new towers would build on and incorporate new technologies and materials as well as adapting to any challenges appearing during construction and operation of the previous towers.
In 25 years since the previous tower was built and operated not only have wind turbines improved, but so have the materials needed to build a Solar Updraft Tower. They will continue to improve over the coming years.
Thank you for hearing me out.
Yours sincerely,
Humans think they are smarter than dolphins because we build cars and buildings and start wars etc., and all that dolphins do is swim in the water, eat fish and play around. Dolphins believe that they are smarter for exactly the same reasons. -Douglas Adams, writer, dramatist, and musician (1952-2001)
No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be. -Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer (1920-1992)
I believe I found the missing link between animal and civilized man. It is us. -Konrad Lorenz, ethologist, Nobel laureate (1903-1989)
Wednesday, 17 June 2009. It was a lovely sunny day when I got up and headed over to IHOP for light breakfast. Between various delays, I don’t do mornings well, I didn’t really get on the road until about 10:30.
The initial part of the journey was up to 101. In many ways this was the slowest part of the first half of the trip. Not only was traffic heavy but there were occasional blockages due to construction and just driver stupidity. The drive was pretty but nothing special for about the first 200 miles. Having gotten started about 2 1/2 hours later than I would’ve liked, I’d decided to forgo visiting Hearst Castle. Who knows, one of these days I may get back and see it.
The next 90 miles up the coast to Monterey were much more fun to drive when I wasn’t stuck behind a terrified driver or one who decided that pulling over in order to look at the scenery was much too much trouble and preferred to drive slowly which allowed the driver to block traffic for the 20 or 30 cars following behind. There were stretches where I could let the car run and drive through the corners while feeling a little bit of a G force. Now that was fun.
I finally made it to Monterey, actually Marina, found my Motel 6 and rang up Joy Day. Joy is a sculptor of glass. I met up with her and her partner at the Running Iron for dinner. I had one of the specialty burgers and it was excellent. We had a lovely chat talking about costuming, art, road racing and a few other topics. Joy’s partner, also an artist, is involved in auto racing and has an Indy 500 winner’s ring to prove it. Joy was kind enough to bring down a sample of her glasswork for me to admire.
After a delightful evening I headed back to the motel, cleaned up some e-mail and read. I did not read too long as I was tired and quickly turned out the light.
If some enterprising soul would develop a “pill” which would control the sex of the child, overpopulation would be a thing of the past in about 20 to 40 years. – The experience in China typifies the fact that an overwhelming proportion of families around the world would choose to have a male child. Now granted this might start a bunch of small [?] wars where males go to kidnap women, but that is a minor consideration. – In 20+ years there would be very few women of childbearing age or potential in the world. Hence, the population of the world would plummet without having to resort to drastic measures. After all it is the number of women which controls the number of births: 1 woman plus 9 males = 1 child; 9 women plus 1 male = 9 children.
Is the US, state and local governments allocating funds in the best way? I’m not so sure. While I don’t say cut spending for underachieving students, I do say, more money, belike, lots more money must be spent on students who can achieve well above average. Why? Because they are the persons as adults who will create, invent and discover items that will make our lives much richer. It is time the US recognized this. Hey, if it weren’t for all those “nerds & geeks” average America likes to put down, then average America wouldn’t have any nice toys to play with. They would have to amuse & abuse themselves. It is high time the US really rewarded excellence.
