The Ramblings of Ken

It is starting to get cold here now. The snow level is also slowly creeping down the mountains. Soon it will be here in the valley floor. Are you guys all ready for winter? I am. I love the winter. I love the snow. I love the sports and various activities that you can only do in the winter time. Sledding, tubing, skiing, snowmobiling, making snow angels, and making snowmen are all things that I miss in the summer time. I am getting excited now! When it gets really freezing cold it can get a little annoying, but it is all a sacrifice that makes it worth it. Bring on the winter! I'm ready!

[url=http://www.skithebeav.com]Ski the Beav![/url]

(Image courtesy of Beaver Mountain)

My apologies to those of you who may have tried to use the "Contact Me" function in the menu on the right. It was not working and I couldn't figure out why. I finally figured it out today. My virus scanner has a port blocking feature which "prevents mass-mailing worms" from sending e-mail. This was blocking communications on port 25, which is required to make a connection to an SMTP server to send e-mail. It is now working correctly. If you want to use the "Contact Me" feature in the menu, feel free to do so.

IBM has slowed light down to 1/300th of its speed using materials that are commonly available. This could be the breakthrough that allows computers to run using optical technology rather than electroncs. An optical based computer could run much faster and use far less power than the energy hogging CPUs that we have today. This is exciting news to me!

From the article at ZDNet:

[blockquote]The chip, called a photonic silicon waveguide, is a piece of silicon dotted with arrays of tiny holes. Scattered systematically by the holes, light shown on the chip slows down to 1/300th of its ordinary speed of 186,000 miles per second. In a computer system, slower light pulses could carry data rapidly, but in an orderly fashion. The light can be further slowed by applying an electric field to the waveguide.[/blockquote]

Could we see the first optical computers within the next five years?

Once in a while I will listen to Coast to Coast AM late at night. I find a lot of things discussed on the program to be quite interesting, especially when it does not have to do with aliens, ghosts, and the paranormal, which, unfortunately, is not all that often.

Last Wednesday evening Jerome Corsi and Craig Smith, authors of "Black Gold Stranglehold" were on the program. They talk about the conditions of the world's oil supply. I've always felt that there was some kind of conspiracy going on in the world with respect to oil. In the program the tell how the earth has been proven to produce oil in a natural cycle. They say that we aren't rapidly using up some finite supply of oil that will be depleted in 10, 20, 50, or even 100 years.

From the book's description:

[blockquote]Experts estimate that Americans consume more than 25 percent of the world's oil but have control over less than 3 percent of its proven oil supply. This unbalanced pattern of consumption makes it possible for foreign governments, corrupt political leaders, terrorist organizations, and oil conglomerates to hold the economy and the citizens of the United States in a virtual stranglehold. There is no greater proof of this than the direct relationship between skyrocketing gas prices and the explosion of wealth among those who control the world's supply of oil.

In Black Gold Stranglehold, Jerome Corsi and Craig Smith expose the fraudulent science that has made America so vulnerable: the belief that oil is a fossil fuel and that it is a finite resource. This book reveals the conclusions reached by Dr. Thomas Gold, a professor at Cornell University, in his seminal book The Deep Hot Biosphere: The Myth of Fossil Fuels (Copernicus Books, 1998) and accepted by many in the scientific community that oil is not a product of fossils and prehistoric forests but rather the bio-product of a continuing biochemical reaction below the earth's surface that is brought to attainable depths by the centrifugal forces of the earth's rotation.

Jerome Corsi explores the international and domestic politics of oil production and consumption, including the wealth and power of major oil conglomerates, the manipulation of world economies by oil-producing nations and rogue terrorist regimes, and the shortsightedness of those who endorse expensive conservation efforts while rejecting the use of the oil reserves currently controlled by the U.S. government.

As an expert in tangible assets, Craig Smith provides an understanding of the history of America's dangerous dissociation of the dollar with precious—and truly scarce—metals such as gold and the devastation that would be inflicted on the U.S. economy if Middle Eastern countries are able to follow through with current plans to make the euro the standard currency for oil instead of U.S. dollars.

Black Gold Stranglehold is a thoughtful work that is certain to dramatically change the debate on oil consumption, oil dependence, and oil availability.[/blockquote]

It is time that the US freed itself from dependency on foreign oil. It is time that we use our own resources in our own country. There is an abundance of oil in this country in places like Alaska, the Gulf Coast, and others. We need to take advantage of this and get out of the trap that the middle eastern countries and oil companies have set for us.

(Image courtesy of Amazon.com)

Over this last weekend we had a LAN party in my basement. It was a total blast and I absolutely loved it. However, after it was all over I was too lazy to setup my computer upstairs where it belongs again. I simply took all of the components up there and threw them down somewhere near the computer. I then plugged in the power cord and network cord to the computer and turned it on. So, basically it is serving this website, it is a terminal server, and it is a streaming music server for me to listen to my music at work. Hmmm... maybe when the new LCD comes it will have to become a normal desktop computer again.

I'm looking at a steal of a deal on a 19 inch LCD on newegg.com. I am having a hard time deciding on whether or not I really should buy it. I am leaning toward buying it because LCDs are so convenient when moving your computer around and taking it places. They also save on valuable desk space. Hmmm... unless someone has a good argument on why I should not buy it, I think I will.

This is the one I am thinking of buying: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=24-168-005

EDIT: Too late. I did it. I bought the thing. Another impulse purchase that I could have lived without.... oh well... it will be nice to have.