Congressman Bartlett - Peak Oil Speech

peakoil.com :

PEAK OIL -- (House of Representatives - May 03, 2005)

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Dent). Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett) is recognized until midnight.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, several weeks ago I read a treatise written by Matt Savinar, and I was galvanized by his introduction. Let me read it.

"Dear reader," he begins, "civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon. This is not the whacky proclamation of a doomsday cult, apocalypse Bible prophesy sect, or conspiracy theory society. Rather, it is the scientific conclusion of the best-paid, most widely respected geologists, physicists, and investment bankers in the world. These are rational, professional, conservative individuals who are absolutely terrified by a phenomenon known as global peak oil."

Mr. Speaker, in the weeks since I read this, I have checked with a large number of experts in this area across the country and indeed around the world. He could be right. He will be right unless we appropriately address this big challenge which faces the world and particularly faces the United States, and that is what we will be talking about in our Special Order this evening ... [continued]

(2005-05-04 23:08:59 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

Random musings

Been busy at work at the new place, and gotten back a little dazed and tired, so haven't been blogging that much recently (see "Second chance" and "Fast crash" for details).

Good thing is, so far, it's been pretty interesting. Particularly when one, "blur-blur" coming in, has got to wade through millions of lines of code. Well, maybe not all at once. But hey, after all, I'm the one who introduced CVS and wrote the automated Ant scripts for the previous place, and that's exactly what they're using now at the new place, so how bad can it get, eh. It's just the code, lots of it. And I have to learn a new tool, Eclipse, which isn't that bad after being in development for so long. Yup, I've talked about the SGD $5000 per developer license problem earlier, haven't I.

Here's a photo of the new place. Blk 750 (Oasis), Chai Chee Technopark :

Biow Ee took this while on the way back from work. The datestamp's screwed up, though. Could be due to the high-power lithium batteries messing up the timing circuitry or something. Yup, I said, Li, not Li-Ion. We bring this 2.1-megapixel camera around with these long shelf-life, rugged, high-density Li batteries, well, for fun & emergencies. Got the camera free from an earlier cable modem promotion, anyway.

And here's the official signage. Yes, it says "Technopark@Chai Chee" - a holdover from earlier times when it was chic to put an "e-" or an "i-" in front of everything, and an "@" somewhere in between. Now, we (should!) all know better, but *shrug* that's how it is :

Further on the way back home, we spotted a "classic" Toyota Prius hybrid car. Classic meaning, the one before the 2004 model change. It's exceedingly rare on local roads :

Oh, and my article on outsourcing got published on yesterday's Straits Times, the national newspaper. Digital Life section, Enterprise Solutions Guide pull-out, page 8. The title is "Making Outsourcing Work" (editor's choice of title, not mine, heh). See, I'm too busy to even blog about it, though I did put up a hurried post on the M4M forums, and dashed off a few YM messages. This article must have caused the editors some headaches though - it's a (rather) sensitive topic. They must have gone back and forth with me about 5-6 times already, via email. Been changed quite a bit from the original submission. This must also be about the first time I got to preview my article in an semi-edited form before it got published, too. Anyway, regular lowem.log readers will know what the topic is all about. "All Your Jobs Are Belong To Them", "The Race To The Bottom", and all that.

(2005-05-04 22:32:06 SGT) [Musings] Permalink

Planet 'seen' around distant sun

news.bbc.co.uk :

European and American scientists say they have photographed a planet outside the Solar System for the first time. The European Southern Observatory group said the red image is the first direct shot of a planet around another star.

The planet, known as 2M1207b, is about five times the size of Jupiter and is orbiting at a distance nearly twice as far as Neptune is from our Sun. The parent star and planet are more than 200 light-years away near the southern constellation of Hydra.

It is extremely difficult for current technology to detect exoplanets - let alone get a clear shot of one. All of the 130 or so exoplanets so far discovered have been found using indirect methods - looking for changes in the properties of stars (their brightness or way they move) that can be explained only by the presence of a planet.

The star has the uninspiring catalogue number 2M1207A. It is a brown dwarf, or "failed star" - an object whose mass of hydrogen and helium has failed to trigger the nuclear reactions that would make it shine brightly like normal stars.

(2005-05-04 20:12:18 SGT) [Tech] Permalink

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