A Photo From the Archives

There are many advantages to living in Charleston, but Autumnal colors are not one of them.  This photo was taken in the late ’90s in the Linville Gorge area of North Carolina (in the Pisgah National Forest).  I think this shows one of the many draws for the mountains as far as photography or painting is concerned: dark clouds ahead with full sun behind (notice the shadows on lower right hand side).  For those of  you who may be wondering why there is no real foreground or middle ground, I wanted to concentrate on the contrast between the hues of the trees and the values of the clouds.  I hope you enjoy it.

Click on image for full size

For those of you who may be looking, I have left the original as it was, untouched.  The only process that took place was scanning the original photo.  You may notice some spots in the picture, but by the time I took this photo, my camera, a Ricoh KR-5 Super, with 50-105 zoom lens, was closing in on 20 years old.  It had, by this time, been twice across the country, and through two years of Panamanian rainy seasons, and was somewhat the worse for wear.  It has since been retired, but provided many years of excellent images.

How do You Read a Book?

Some other people might disagree, but I have, what I consider, quite a small library.  As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t even call it a library (though the room where there is supposed to be a dining room table has only books in it), but just a collection of books, barely a thousand.  My goal is fifteen times this.  At least then I shall have a good start, something I could call a library.  Given this, you could say that I have read a book or two; though it is not my intent in this article to be prescriptive in what you or anyone else might or should read.  The title of this may even seem somewhat confusing.  You start at the front and go until there is nothing left.  Seems simple.  With nonfiction, this is true.  It is usually an imparting of information of some sort–historical, biographical, how-toical.  I do have a wide variety of nonfiction on my shelves ranging from blacksmithing to theoretical physics (I will recommend anything that Brian Green has written on this last note).  But here, I am not concerned with factional books at all, but instead, fictional, a category which I find much more satisfying (from here on out, when I refer to books, I mean novels, novellas or short story collections). more »

Art-The Single Greatest Endeavor of Mankind

Perhaps from the title, you can tell I plan on making some bold statements here, possibly insulting a some people.  Good.  When I say Art, what I mean is the triumvirate of Art-literature, fine arts, and music.  Everything else that can be considered art is derived from one or a combination of these three.  more »

Alternative Energy-Part 2. Transportation

In part one of this article, I looked at a number of technologies that might replace coal.  In this one, I want to look at the technologies and fuels that could replace oil.  The majority of oil is used in transportation, cars, trucks, airlines, shipping, though a small portion is used for home heating.  The latter will fall under the replacing of coal, though, if we can change all the vehicles now using oil-based fuels, those people using oil for their heating will be a very small percentage of our present national oil use.  Once again, considering that we will have to be phasing in new technologies, we will have to consider both short and long term solutions. more »

Alternative Energy, Part 1. Replacing Coal.

There are two kinds of energy that we need to find alternatives for: transportation-gas and diesel, and those sources from which we derive electricity, namely coal and nuclear.  I plan to look at a number of viable replacements for these two needed sources of energy, what they offer and their shortfalls.

First, though there is something I need to discuss to get it out of the way.  There has been much tooting of the horn by the coal industry of the clean coal technology.  First, it isn’t really clean (though it does create fewer pollutants than normal coal burning plants).  In addition, it takes a tremendous amount of processing to get the coal to the “clean” stage.  Lastly, and most importantly, though, we need to leave coal behind simply because the mining of it has gotten to such a point that the landscape is being ruined because it is cost effective for the mining companies.  Regulations were relaxed when Bush the Younger first took office, but he has also recently done so again, now that he is getting ready to leave.  Mining companies are simply grinding up mountains from the top down, pushing everything that isn’t coal into the valleys that surround them.  Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia are slowly being turned into the eastern plains, and would continue to be so if it were left up to the mining companies.  Strip mining is the most cost effective method of mining, which is why the coal companies like it so much, but it is also the most destructive to the landscape and environment.  Simply look at any of the satellite photos that you can find from Google or Live Search in West Virginia, and you will find huge swaths of excavated earth. more »