Goals for the New Year

It’s that time to set my goals for the coming year and I figured by sharing them on this site it would give me added incentive to reach them.

First category of goals is for this site:

I’d like to double its viewership, get it up to 200 hits a day and 70 regular viewers.

To reach that goal I’ll continue to work on what’s been working, 3+ posts a week. I tried doing a post everyday for a while and it made me have to scramble to get posts up and I felt the quality suffered. At 3+ posts a week I’ve got a little more time to polish the posts but still get enough content out to keep people coming back.

My next goal is related to that:

When I started this site I made a vow that it would be self-sufficient, meaning I wouldn’t put any money into it. I also vowed I wouldn't put up any ads that were outright scams, believe it or not there are some scams on the internet. So revenue from this site has been coming solely from Google Adsense, once I get enough Adsense pennies I plan on getting Project Savior its very own domain name and everything. Which is a goal for 2010.

I haven’t made anything from Rifftracks but I keep their ad up because I loved MST3K and their Rifftracks make me laugh. If I ever get a payment from Rifftracks I’ll probably spend it on Rifftracks.

Also in 2010 I’m going to start a new monthly series: “Better Know a Gang Rape Supporter” where each month I will profile one of the nine Senators that are up for re-election and voted against the bill to hold Government Contractors liable if they enable their employees to gang rape co-workers.

I figure I’ll give them a full profile and email them and call their offices to see if I can get a statement. This series will have nothing to do with trying to increase the popularity of this site, I just feel those Senators need to be held accountable for their vote.

My next set of goals has to do with writing:

In 2008 I wrote the Novel “Invasive Thoughts”. In 2009 I wrote “Project Spare-Rib” and “The Setting Earth”. So in 2010 the natural extension is to write 3 books. I’ve got one started and the second one will be a departure for me, it will be non-fiction. I plan on greatly expanding my posts on Peak Oil and Alternative Energy and make a book out of it.

This leads to my second writing goal, I want to get another book published in 2010. It took me a year and half to get a publisher for “Invasive Thoughts” hopefully I have learned something from it and can reduce the amount of time it takes for the next one.

My third writing goal is to have at least 6 more short stories published. My success rate in getting stories published is about 1 in 4. So I’ll need to write 24 short stories to hit this goal.

My personal goals for 2010 are fairly simple:

I want to volunteer at least one day a month to charity this summer. Habitat for Humanity is building a few houses in my area and I’d like to help out.

Lose the 10 lbs I’ve gained and this time keep it off.

Do a few projects around the house to make it more energy efficient.

My last goal is probably the hardest one for me. As I mentioned in my last post I love getting comments, but coming up with a concise, related comment to put on other peoples blogs is tough for me. But I am going to try and leave good comments on the sites I visit and like. Hopefully it will encourage those bloggers to continue writing.

Temper Tantrum Tuesday: Aiming higher

It’s a weird thing actually hitting all my goals for the year. I think the secret is to be so far down that any movement is an improvement.

I started 2009 in a pretty rough shape, my only income was $55 a week from giving blood minus the $10 the trip took. Creditors had raided my bank account wiping what little money I had, and at interviews I was asked why a former Securities Broker/ Insurance Agent would want the job they were offering and they weren’t impressed with the answer, “I need to eat.”

The place that I had been turning to for both emotional support and to post some of my writing was a site called thisisby.us TIBU and it shut down, and no agent would look at my book.

With a start like that it was pretty easy to set some goals to reach in 2009.

1) Survive – Done I’m still here.
2) Write another book – Wrote 2 so I blew that goal out of the water.
3) Get a job that pays the bills – My current job pays the bills even if I don’t have anything left to play with, and I found out that working 40 hours a week doesn’t have to leave me mentally exhausted. Without being mentally exhausted I can spend 30 to 40 hours a week writing.
4) Get some short stories published – Done
5) Not become a crazy cat person – This has been the hardest of my goals, every time I go outside and see the evil minions I want to bring them inside and take care of them, but I know I can’t. I make sure that I feed them less than their daily requirement so they still need to hunt and give them places to rest that marginally better than sleeping outside, but I make sure they don’t get totally dependant on me.
6) Get bill collectors to stop calling – I tape my calls with them so if they dare to sue me I can play tapes of them saying things like “No, we don’t honor our agreements” and “Yes, I was lying before”. It’s amazing how few of them want to talk to me knowing their ridiculous lies will be recorded. I also get a chuckle listening to one of them saying he will call the people across the street and let them know a debt collector is calling, I live across from a cemetery.
7) Start a blog and get over 100 hits a day (more than any other website I’ve had) – Done, since joining Entrecard my hits are nearly always in the triple digits, and more importantly I’ve got a steady 35 to 40 people that check on this site regularly. It’s you guys that keep coming back that make this blog worthwhile. Just know that if you leave a comment it makes my day, if you don’t that’s cool too.
8) Lose the last lingering 5 lbs – I guess this was a sort of hit goal, I lost the 5 lbs I wanted to lose, plus 10 I didn’t, in February, when I didn’t have the money to eat properly. Once I had the money to eat regular meals I gained back that 15 pounds and plus 5 so I’ll have to be more specific for 2010.
9) Get my book published – “Invasive Thoughts” comes out this summer.
10) Be happy – Even though I’m making a tenth of what I made 3 years ago I’m much happier now. I feel the end of 2008 beginning of 2009 threw enough crap at me to knock anyone down and I survived, barely. I just have to remember how bad the beginning of 2009 was and how much better a place I’m in now.


So my Temper Tantrum today is that I didn’t set my goals high enough last year, and I need to up the ante for 2010. I’ll post those goals before the end of the year.

Shut-up Stupid Sunday: Decade of the Unreal

The decade is drawing to a close and hopefully we have learned some lessons from it.

This last decade was like the Asch Conformity Experiment on a national scale.

In the Asch Conformity Experiment researchers presented a group of subjects with the following picture:

All the subjects but one were told to give the wrong answer and Asch studied how often the people would go along with the group when they were clearly wrong. The answer was about a third of the time.

So in this decade we were told that dismantling Federal Government Services and paying more to private companies to perform the same tasks would strengthen the country, because paying more for less has to be good.

Like the Asch Experiment people heard this over and over again and began to believe in what they thought was the majority view.

We were told that Iraq attacked this country in the Anthrax scare that left 5 people dead, giving America a reason to invade. Then were told that there were no attacks on America since 9/11, including the Anthrax scare, which meant the war on terror was working.

We were told the stock markets rising at a pace that didn’t keep up with inflation was a boom, and that was a reason to continue to shift money into the hands of the top 1% income as the income of the bottom 99% got less.

We were told that artificially inflating the housing market would serve as a substitute for manufacturing to power the economy.

We were told war could pay for itself, even though it never has.

Throughout the last decade the MSM subjected the American people to a mass version of the Asch line experiment and convinced enough people to believe that line C was the same length as the line in exhibit A, Until Reality Struck Back.

Katrina showed that having a working Federal Government would be beneficial.
The Financial Meltdown showed that the economy can’t be separated from reality.
The massive deficits that have been used to pay for the wars showed that wars don’t pay for themselves.
The (Healthcare, Banking, ect) Industry abuses show that businesses can’t regulate themselves.

So to all the people that want to bring back the last decade by repeating over and over again something that is blatantly false, like: Sarah Palin has a brain; That President Obama isn’t an American citizen; That healthcare reform means Death Panels, Larger Deficits and Liberal controlled Time Machines; That ACORN has launched a coup and took over the country; That activist judges can prevent prayer in schools; and whatever other blatantly false stories that can be debunked by opening your eyes, To those people I say “shut-up stupid” and let the coming decade be one where we actually use reality to guide our decisions.

Fantastic Future Christmas

Santa Claus will continue to bring presents.

This will make a Merry Christmas and Fantastic Future.

Merry Christmas Minions

Hello Mommy of the little Minions

Where are the little Minions, today?
They're all tucked in waiting for Santa Paws.

The Evil Minions want to wish everyone a

Merry Christmas!

Shut-up Stupid Sunday: The War on Christmas

This is my last Shut-up Stupid post before Christmas so I thought this topic would be fitting.

I’ve had friends of a lot of different faiths, Atheists, Jews, religions considered cults, you name it. One thing we all shared was celebrating Christmas.

The celebration of Christmas is to celebrate the joy of sharing with you’re fellow human beings. It doesn’t matter whether you look at its Pagan roots, its Roman roots or even the New York City roots that most of its current traditions spring from. It’s a time to be happy, reach out a hand friendship and reflect on whatever good things happened in the last year.

It is the people who wish to divide us who are offended when someone like me, or an Atheist or a Jew, says, “Merry Christmas”. They look to use the celebration intended to bring us together as a tool to tear us apart.

To them I say, “Shut-up Stupid” and to everyone else I say, “Merry Christmas.”

Fantastic Future Friday: Skipping a Century

This week I decided to jump forward about a century in human progress (or 150 years with current R&D budgets) and talk about a project for the 22nd century. I’m sure Stephanie will correct my rocket science figures so make sure to read her notes.

Two things limit space travel right now: Money and Specific Impulse. The money problem is complicated but the Specific Impulse problem is fair straight forward.

There are three types of rockets currently being used, Solid, Hybrid, or Bipropellant Rockets. Their effective exhaust speed, how fast stuff shoots out the back making them go forward, is between 4 kilometers per second and 4.7 kilometers per second. As a general rule rockets are most efficient when traveling about or slower than their exhaust speed, or Specific Impulse. Once a rocket reaches twice its Specific Impulse (it’s a more complicated formula than that, but doubling it gives a ballpark figure) its efficiency drops dramatically.

So our current generation of rockets can just break Earth’s orbit and go into their own orbit around the sun. In order to go faster they need to use a gravitation boost, which is why most space missions swing by Venus or Jupiter.

Using our current chemical rockets, trips to other planets are governed by orbital mechanics and it will take several months to reach Mars and Venus, years to go to the Outer Solar System.

Our next generation of rockets is Ion Thrusters; they use a stream of electrostatic ions for thrust. They have very low thrust so they can’t be used to go to orbit, but their Specific Impulse is much higher than the current generation of rocket. 15 kilometer per second for the NEAR probe, and a hypothetical exhaust speed is 80 kilometers per second.

As this science advances Ion Thruster powered rockets could (slowly) reach 160 kilometers per second opening up the inner solar system with trips taking a few months, mostly spent accelerating to the top speed.

To reach the outer solar system it would still be at least a year to reach Jupiter taking the slow acceleration into account. Several years to go to Saturn and beyond.

Skipping forward to at least the mid-21st century there are designs for Magnetic Field Oscillating Amplified Thrusters, using fluctuating magnetic fields to induce density waves in electric conductive media. These send magnetic fields over a material to hurl their atoms out at great speeds, around 130 kilometers per second. So a ship using this technology could reach 260 kilometers easily.

The problem with these rockets is they need a powerful energy source, current plans envision using Nuclear reactors to power these. In my book “The Setting Earth” I had them powered by Helium 3 fusion reactors.
These rockets could open up the inner solar system and reduce travel time between the planets to weeks, but it would still take months to reach Jupiter and years to go beyond.

With those limitations in mind here is the big project for the 22nd century, because my ideas for 21st century projects are too small.

In order to open up the Outer Solar System humanity will need a few really fast rockets, in order to have faster rockets we need a huge energy source. Luckily we happen to have one lying around, The Sun.

As space based solar power is advanced in Earth’s orbit we can use that on a larger scale at Mercury’s Lagrange Point, the spot in Mercury’s orbit where an object will always be between Mercury and the Sun. In Mercury’s orbit the Sun’s Power is roughly 10 times the power it is here on Earth so a large Solar Power Station could generate huge amounts of power.

Making a Solar Power Station that put Mercury and the surrounding 100 kilometers around it into its shadow could easily generate 180 terajoules per minute of power, roughly the same as the largest Thermo-Nuclear bomb ever made. This power could be harnessed to make a huge particle accelerator capable of producing one gram of matter and one gram of anti-matter. The anti-matter could be used to power more advanced rockets with a Specific Impulse of around 1,000 kilometers per second or a top speed of roughly 0.6% of the speed of light.

This would get the travel time to Saturn down to a couple weeks, and even the outer reaches of the Solar System, the Kuiper belt objects would be a few years away.

The staff of this Solar Power Station/ Anti-Matter generator would probably like a nice place to stay and that is where the size of the project helps. By only taking 90% of the Sun’s light to power the station, the same amount of light that hits Earth could be used on Mercury. By only extending the shadow of the station 100 kilometers to Mercury’s sides, comets could be placed in orbit.

When these comets come into full exposure of the Sun they will melt into water vapor. In Mercury’s orbit this water vapor will be broken into Hydrogen and Oxygen. The Solar Wind will get rid of the hydrogen and the Oxygen will slow break orbit and fall to the planet giving it an atmosphere. By constantly feeding more comets into Mercury’s orbit we can turn Mercury into an Earthlike planet with the same land mass as Earth.

With a few million people living on Mercury and nearly unlimited energy they can work on the next big project.

The speed limitation of Anti-matter powered ships is 0.6% of the speed of light. At that speed it would take roughly 800 years to reach Alpha Centauri, our nearest neighbor with stars that are sort of like our own.

To reach the stars we need an even faster ship. Having a Solar Powered Particle accelerator in Mercury’s orbit would allow us to make that.

Using the Particle accelerator as an atom smasher, it is possible to reduce over a million tons of matter into quarks and reassemble them as higgs boson particles. These particles respond only to gravity and none of the other atomic forces, so they could form a semi-stable black hole.

This artificial black hole would slowly break down emitting Hawking’s Radiation. A perfect mirror could be used to reflect this radiation making the ship attached to it have a specific impulse of the speed of light.

A ship powered by Hawking’s Radiation could accelerate at one Earth’s gravity for a year and reach 90% of the speed of light. That would put the nearest stars within a decade travel time of Earth.

With the travelers experiencing time dilation they would only feel the time it took to accelerate plus a few months, even though for the rest of the solar system time would act normally. It is kind of like college.

That is the upper limitation of rocket science. Going any faster would need to use something else, unfortunately at this time there is nothing that I see as practical to replace rockets at the present time.

In the 23rd century scientists will have to look beyond rocket science, so Stephanie your job will only be around for the next 200 to 300 years.

Catspiracy Purrsday: Attack of the Minions

I was working in my office and thought a minion might be secretly spying on me.

Possible Minion Spy

So I went outside to check.

It turned out to be a trap.

Minion Trap

Before I knew it they were treading on me and I had my lap blundered.

More Minions

Then two of them started clunking their heads against me. The horror.

Writing Wednesday: Another site and another book

With my first book, “Invasive Thoughts” in pre-production (aren’t books technically in pre-production from the time you first think about them?) I’ve started the website for it.
http://www.publishedauthors.net/darrellbnelson/index.html there isn’t much to put in it yet, but I’ll work on it.

One of my goals for next year is to have at least one more book published (or at least accepted) so I worked on the back cover for my novel “Project Spare-Rib”. Using the same guidelines as the back cover for “Invasive Thoughts” I tried to boil down my 60,000-word book to 150 words. It should be easier as it’s a shorter book, right?

Project Spare-Rib:

Tom is an interesting fellow; he tastes sounds and sees numbers. He can make up mathematical theorems on the fly that challenge the math departments of the best Universities, but he has to cheat in order to hold simple conversations.

After a friend of his sends him a mathematical representation of a Nazi Hollerith machine he can’t resist investigating what it was used for.

He is thrown into a world of political intrigue as his investigations reveal that the Nazi’s were working with American businessmen in order to crack the secrets of the genetic code and create a superhuman.

His life is in danger when he learns the Project did not end with the Nazis but was continued by one of the most powerful families in America.

In order to save himself, he must rely on his friends who have been hurt by him in the past.

Temper Tantrum Tuesday: What a Piece of Work is Man?

Hamlet:
What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me—nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

Rosencrantz:
My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.

Shakespeare eloquently captured mankind’s struggle in just a few words. With science and research, political policy and any decisions involving the future of mankind the discussion ultimately boils down the young prince was talking about.

Progressives simply believe that mankind can change the world, that our intellect and technology enables us to be as Shakespeare said, “In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!” Since we can change the world we have a responsibility to change it for the better.

Conservatives look at mankind like the troubled prince, to them man is merely the quintessence of dust. Mankind’s action can have no impact on heaven or Earth.

In looking at problems like Climate Change Progressives “know” that mankind is a powerful enough force to change the very planet we live on. They look upon the landscape that has been transformed by technology, mono-crop states, dams large enough to change the spin of the planet, satellites in Earth orbit where the most powerful volcanoes can’t reach and think human ingenuity can do more than nature.

Conservatives in their hearts deny that man can have an impact. In looking at Climate Change the heart of their argument is that the planet is so big and we are so small we can’t possibly be affecting it.

This goes for other arguments as well. With peak oil, we’ve burned 1.25 trillion barrels of oil out of an estimated 3 trillion barrel global supply. Progressives feel that man’s actions by burning nearly half of our global supply of a non-renewable resource will cause us to run out. Conservatives feel we can’t impact the Earth so it must be environmentalist are getting in our way of getting more oil.

As far as investments in research and development, Progressives see the new products and services that arise out of technology as the way to grow our economy. Conservatives feel no actions can affect the economy so money is better put into the financial sector so they can keep passing it around while creating nothing.

It all boils down to your vision of mankind, whether you believe that humans can continue to progress so that they can be in apprehension like gods, ultimately able to reshape our world and eventually our solar system; or if they are merely the quintessence of dust unable to affect their surroundings.

A special thanks to Vet who encouraged me when making my “evil” character to really look and try to sympathize with them, leading me to really examine why people are against progress.

Evil Minion Monday: Spies in Training

There is a new generation of Evil Minions and they are being taught how to spy on me.

Spy training

I will have to keep an eye on this one. It looks like it will grow up to be a very powerful evil minion.

Shut-Up Stupid Sunday: Alt-Meds

Alternative Medicine, or Alt-Meds, is a tough subject because the field is so wide. It covers everything from the use of herbs with mild sedative properties to deal with anxiety to using weak magnets to somehow cure people.

To give Alt-Meds credit some things that were covered under Alt-Meds did point out where there were gaps in Medical Science and started research into those gaps, but those gaps are becoming fewer.

On the legitimate side of Alt-Meds, using nutrition and the natural source of common over the counter drugs can help low-level medical problems. Drinking herbal tea with a mild sedative while having a cat sit on your lap can reduce anxiety in a normal person, leading to a healthier life.

It’s when people claim it can do more that the problem comes in. Although using Alt-Meds can relieve mild anxiety in a normal person it is not going to have an effect on a person that has full-blown panic attacks. Those people need to see a doctor who can customize a treatment for them.

It’s the same with vitamin C and citrus for a common cold, it helps the body recover faster but using it for Swine Flu is pointless.

These herbal remedies (the legitimate ones) are like putting a towel down in front of the door to keep water out when it rains, it will work for normal storms but it’s not going to save you from a hurricane like Katrina.

The other legitimate Alt-Med is homeopathy, treating the whole body instead of the symptoms. There is a legitimate science that does this it is called nutritional medicine. Nutritional Medicine studies the effect of diet on a person’s health. Good homeopathic treatments are just amateur attempts at this science. Bad homeopathic treatments are either missing the science or an attempt to make a quick buck.

So people who claim that alt-meds can do anything better than over the counter drugs and a healthy lifestyle are either being delusional or are making money off the dysfunctional healthcare system we have.

Other Alt-Meds are down right scams, like magnetic therapy where you put low-level magnets on your clothes (so weak a magnetic force that you can’t pick up a paperclip with a sock over the magnet). These cures do absolutely nothing.

So with Alt-Meds like herbal treatments, homeopathy, massage therapy and petting a cat do your own research into using them for normal problems that aren’t severe enough to see a doctor for. Remembering that they probably aren’t as effective as over the counter drugs but the side effects are probably weaker as well. Just don’t use them to skip a trip to your doctor.

And to the people who tout Alt-Meds as cures for cancer, AIDS, severe mental illnesses and the like, I say, “Shut-up Stupid” if there is a legitimate scientific basis behind the claims of an Alt-Med treatment it will be studied and marketed through the legitimate healthcare system, if there’s not it will be studied and debunked.

Gallery - Kaiane Aldorino, Miss World 2009

Name:	Kaiane Aldorino
Birthdate:	July 8, 1986 (age 23)
Star sign:	Cancer
Birthplace:	Gibraltar
Height:	1.74 m (5 ft 8+1⁄2 in)
Eye color:	Brown
Hair color:	Brown
Occupation:	HR Clerk
Languages Spoken:	English & Spanish.
Hobbies and Interests:	Dancing, travelling and spending spare time with loved ones.
Ambition (Academic/Professional):	To further my career and be successful in life.
Idea of a perfect day:	Enjoying a sunny day outdoors with family and friends.
Title(s):	Miss World 2009 Miss World Europe Miss Gibraltar 2009 Miss World Beach Beauty 2009