Blog

Friday, May 5th, 2006

It's Pronounced Newkleearrr!

With the world’s addiction to oil being at the top of everyone’s environmental hit list, many people are talking about alternative energy sources. Some old some new. I found an article on Newsvine about looking at the possibility of bringing nuclear energy back into the mainstream. As someone who grew up in a town where the primary employer was Atomic Energy Canada Limited, I learned a few things about nuclear energy. I am by no means a nuclear physicist so I am no expert, but I did learn a few things about nuclear power and radiation. The article looks at the cost effectiveness of nuclear energy, and the possibilities of using alternative nuclear fuels like Thorium.

While I understand the concept behind a nuclear reactor, I find it hard to understand how proponents of Nuclear energy can say that a nuclear station would reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The large steam stacks associated with Nuclear plants are spouting greenhouse gas on as large a scale as any conventional power plant. Some people seem to forget that water vapour is a greenhouse gas. It isn’t as polluting as the various toxic gases that are pumped into our atmosphere, but water vapour is extremely good at holding the heat which radiates from the earth’s surface thus causing global warming. As for the storage of nuclear waste, it doesn’t matter what the primary material is for nuclear fuel. It is still radioactive. Storage of this material is difficult at best. Burying it is an answer, though not a very good one as the earth’s crust is an ever evolving entity. While we on the prairies don’t get earthquakes (knock on wood) we are able to measure the results of an earthquake in the depths of the Pacific Ocean here in stable Manitoba. As the crust moves and settles, underground storage becomes vulnerable. Leakage of nuclear waste into the ground water would have disasterous consequences.

Personally I think that the world’s energy companies and leaders should be making a concerted effort to develop solar, wind, hydro, and any other non-polluting power. Our dependence on the world’s non-renewable resources has led us to the brink of our own extinction. The world is over populated, our environment is a mess, and we are destroying the biosphere of our planet at an accelerating rate. Scientists are already saying it is too late. If we keep going as we are, it will be.

Thursday, May 4th, 2006

I have no time for blogging!

Ok, after harrassment from everybody here about not keeping the "BLOG" current here is my post.

I'm too frickin busy to worry about this right now so quit harrassing me!

(The guys here are just jealous that my blog gets more hits than the rest of the site....hey I even made the Jet Set Satelite message board).....speaking of which read the above post!

Doug

Sunday, April 30th, 2006

Where do you find your new music?

I've been asked a few times in the last little while about where I find my new music. My answer is always a little muddy, as I have several sources that I follow in hopes of finding a new gem to put into rotation on the iPod. So, for your listening pleasure, here is a small list of the places I go when looking for new music:

• Radioparadise.com - without a doubt, a fantastic listening experience. Bill is one of the last great DJs in my opinion. He is able to link together sets of songs that just seem made for listening to back to back. If you have never listened, check it out. You won't be disappointed.
  
  
• Paste Magazine - I used to get Tracks magazine, but they merged with Paste. Boy am I glad they did. Not only does Paste cover music, but they also seem to dig pop culture in the same way I do. Each issue comes with a CD full of the best tracks from their album reviews. Every Paste CD has been churned through my iPod for a week or two after arriving and without fail, from each CD I have ended up buying at least one new full CD.
  
  
• CBC Radio 3 Podcast - One of the best Podcasts you can get - and free! With over 1,000,000 subscribers at the start of 2006, Grant does a great job of bringing new Canadian music to the world. There was a little time there that CBC axed radio 3, and what a dark few months that was. Happily, everything is back and things are right in the music world.
  
  
• Pitch Fork Media - My brother turned my on to Pitch Fork awhile back. Great reviews of music you may or may not have heard of, along with news and other interesting pop culture happenings. Start with their Best of List and go from there.
  
  
• MetaCritic - If you only bookmark one site from this small list, this is likely the one. They pull reviews from around the planet together and use those scores to create a complete score for the albums they review. Of course, they link back to all the reviews they rank and you can spend days sifting through the reviews on just one album. They also have a complete listing for DVDs, Games, Books and more ... best of all, they have a really comprehensive up coming releases calendar in the music section.
  
  

There you have it. A small list of online music resources I spend way too much time at. So where to do you track down your new music? am always looking for new veins of music to tap so leave a comment and let me know.