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| Screen, Video, Image, Resolution, Hi DefOne of the fun things about having a computer is being able to watch DVDs.
Now-a-days, there are high definition DVDs (HD-DVDs) that look much
better than regular DVDs, IF they are viewed on a high-definition TV or
a really good computer monitor.
Monitors have special code names for their resolution. The most
common
for many years was VGA monitors. They displayed 640x480
pixels. Right now, good monitors will display over four times as
many pixels, 1280 by
1024, also known as SXGA.
The image for a DVD is 720 pixels wide by 480 pixels tall.
The image for High Definition video is 1920 pixels wide by 1080 pixels tall.
To watch the best possible image of a high definition movie, the monitor should display 1920 pixels
across.
The WUXGA (Wide - Ultra eXtra Good
Array) gives 1920 by 1200 pixels. Hooking such a monitor up
to a newer computer with a really good video card signal is probably the
cheapest way to watch High Definition video.
Here are some examples of screens that will show high definition...
* Alienware m5550 15.4" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD in a laptop computer
* Alienware m5750 17.0" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD in a laptop computer
* Viewsonic VP2330wb 23.0" WUXGA 1920x1200 flat screen monitor
High Definition movies would not play on DVD players. Such movies
require a special drive. Right now, these high-definition drives
are very expensive.
* Sony VAIO VGN-AR190G
- 17" 1920x1200 with HD DVD recording drive -- $3500
* Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV650 - AVPC Laptop with HD DVD playback drive -- $2500
* Sony 2x2x2 Blu-ray Internal drive - $750 (Blu-ray is a kind of High Definition video disk.)
Looks like buying one of those is way too expensive for me! But
who knows, prices on computers have always come down (in the
past). I guess I'll just keep dream'in. 
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| SummerSummer break is here, woo hoo! Yesterday was the last day for the
teachers. The day before was the trip to Cedar Point. Both
were lots of fun, in their own ways.
Now I'm looking forward to the week because I'll have all sorts of time
to do whatever I want. One of the first things is to catch up on
my emails and reading on the internet. It usually takes me about
a week of surfing before I get tired of it.
On Friday is the Michigan Energy Fair. The fair is sort of a
conference, with three different 1-hour classes going on at time.
I've made my list of the most interesting sessions. There are
some about building a solar powered house, some about peak oil, and
others about wind power. I'm going to take some flyers and try to
get people all connected up so that we can chat about peak oil, work on
solving (as much as possible) the problem, and to get the word
out. I guess I'll be spending some time this week working on that.
My updated presentation about peak oil is going to be on TV in Grand
Rapids (channel 24?) in June. I'm seriously considering doing one
more rewrite to the presentation and then making it into a video
myself, to put onto Google Video and YouTube. Right now, the peak
oil videos there are a bit confusing or they don't really understand
the issue.
My students for their final exam all made webpages using
FrontPage. The topic for the web page was energy and peak
oil. Some of the students really seemed to understand a lot of
the ideas. I hope that helps them to talk with their families
when prices get so high that there is a lot of talk at home about it.
I hope all of the students have an interesting summer. I remember
being a tad bit bored when I was their age during the summer because I
lived out in the country and didn't have any neighbors with kids my age
very close. If I had a computer back then, I probably would have
been on Xanga everyday!  I guess that is nice that the
students can talk online. That gets me thinking about the
possibility that an energy crisis following peak oil will cause the
internet to shut down. I don't know how much energy it takes to
keep it up and running, but I'm sure its a huge number.
Ok then, eh? Stay safe out there!
| | |
| Mexico - Yucatan - MayaLast week, I traveled to Mexico to the Yucatan Peninsula with my family. The trip turned out excellent.
 Yucatan
used to be home to millions of people called the Maya. About 1000
years ago, the Maya were one of the greatest civilizations. They
built lots of cities including huge buildings and pyramids.
Amazingly, they didn't use animals or wheels! The largest
pyramids were over 100 feet tall.
While in Yucatan, we visited three ancient Maya cities: 1. Tulum, 2. Coba, and 3. Chichen Itza.
The tall pyramid here is from Chichen Itza (sounds like
Chee-Chen-E-Tsah). President Bush climbed a few steps during his
trip to Mexico in March. When we were there, no one was allowed
to climb this pyramid. Back in January, an old lady was climbing
up, she got tired, sat down, fainted, fell down, and she died... so all
the stairs are roped off.
 This
second pyramid was in Coba. When the ancient Maya built it, it
looked fantastic. The Maya abandoned Coba hundreds of years
ago. Since then, trees and bushes grew in all of the cracks of
this pyramid. This pyramid was cleared of plants only on this one
side so people could see it.
We climbed to the top of this one. It was quite high, but it was
exciting. From the top we could see above the forest in all
directions. By the way, the pyramid in Chichen Itza used to look
just like this, but the people who found it around 1930 decided to try
to make it look like new, so that's why it looks so fantastic.
 Tulum
used to be a city right on the coast of the Yucatan along the Carribean
Sea. It was the center of business with boats going up and down
the coast carry people and things to sell like food and cloth.
Some of the people who lived in Coba probably moved to Tulum after Coba
was deserted.
The reason that Coba and Chichen Itza were deserted is
interesting. The people there basically used up everything they
needed to live. In Chichen Itza, they used up all the trees as
far as the eye could see, they ended up polluting their water supply by
not taking care of their body wastes, and then when they didn't get
enough rain, many died because there was not enough food or nutrition.
The same thing happened in Coba except hundreds of years earlier.
They used up all their wood, and probably polluted their lakes, and
after a few dry years with too many people, many died, and the rest
moved away.
The ancient Maya are very interesting because knowing what happened to
them will help us understand what is going to happen to us when we use
too much of the earth.
| | |
| Burning up all the Gasoline for Fun What would a person do if gasoline went from $2.50/gallon to $5.00/gallon?
I think that people would still buy gasoline. They wouldn't be
able to afford as much. They wouldn't just go for a drive.
But they would still buy it. Some people would end up spending
more money on gasoline than usual. That would leave less for fun
stuff like movies, games, and other stuff. 
 Could
the price go up to $5/gallon? Yes, absolutely. In fact,
there are millions of people that already pay that much. The
average price of gasoline in Europe is $5/gallon. Do you think
they're happy about that when we American's are paying half
that?  No, I don't think so.
So why is it so expensive there? Because in the USA, our tax
dollars help to lower the price of gasoline. A lot of tax money
is also used to pay for our military, which helps to keep our gasoline
(oil) supply flowing.
Should we be worried?  No, but we do need to know the facts.
It used to be that gasoline prices stayed steady. They were
steady because the more that people used, the more the Middle East
would pump out of the ground. When the USA wanted 18 million
barrels of oil per day, the Middle East would sell it to us. When
we wanted 20 million a day, the Middle East took care of that, too.
 The
fact is that we have already burned about half of the oil that was in
the Earth to start with. The Middle East, and the entire rest of
the world, is now pumping out oil as fast as they can. BUT, they
can't supply as much as the USA (or the world) want. We're
currently extracting about 85 million barrels per day, and that's
probably the most it will ever be.
So, what happens everyone wants to buy more, say 90 million barrels per
day, but there is only 85 million barrels per day? Very simple,
raise the price so that people can only afford to buy 85 million
barrels! During September, after hurricane Katrina, this is
EXACTLY what happened. What happened to the prices? They
went up by almost a dollar per gallon!
 The
secret that very few people are talking about is that we are sort of in
a crisis. We keep trying to buy more gasoline, but there is only
just enough, so the prices are going up. Its been almost three
years now that prices have been rising steadily on gasoline. We
pay $2.50/gallon, and in Europe, they pay $5.00/gallon.
Based on what I've learned, there will be much less oil in a few years
than there is now. Of course everyone will want it, and so the
price will go up fast. It might surprise you to think about
$25/gallon gasoline, but I suspect we will all see that.
 The
problem is that when we discovered about 100 years ago that oil could
be used to run automobiles, we started burning it up. The people
back then never seemed to care that oil is a non-renewable
resource. In other words, it doesn't come back once its burned up.
In the last 100 years, half of all the oil that will ever exist has
been burned up. That's the main reason we have global
warming. By burning the oil up, we're releasing all the carbon
dioxide in it. We now have about 40% more carbon dioxide in the
air than the earth normally has. That is a problem because the
climate is changing and the ecosystems are dying.
I am a little upset with myself even. I've burned up over 10,000
gallons of gasoline, just for my own cars. I also have spent at
least $500,000 in my lifetime (money I was paid for working).
Most of that money ended up getting spent on OTHER people buying oil or
gasoline. So in reality, I'm probably responsible for the burning
of like 100,000 gallons of gasoline or oil in my lifetime. Just
imagine how much pollution and carbon dioxide that must be.
 I
think this is the number one thing people don't realize. WE
create every single world problem by using money. Once we spend
the money, we are motivating someone, somewhere, to do something...
like cut down a tree or try to make something so cheap that there is
tons of pollution. Once we spend a dollar, it keeps motivating
people to do things as cheep as possible. The next person spends
it, then the next, and then the next... On and on, that dollar keeps
motivating people to do whatever it takes to get that dollar.
Even if we are really, really smart about it, and only buy things from
super good people, if they turn around and spend it buying from someone
that isn't super good, than its just like we were the buying from those
people in the first place.
 I'm
not the only one burning up all the oil. Everyone that spends
money is burning oil, whether they buy gasoline or not. Once a
person pays for something, the seller turns around and spends some on
gasoline, and then buys from other people, who also buy gasoline, and
so on. In the USA alone, we burn or use 20,000,000 gallons of
gasoline per day!!! That is 25% of what the world uses, and we
have less than 4% of the people!!! Plus, a lot of gasoline and
oil are used to provide the USA with products from China and other
countries, so we should really count that as well!
So, we are burning it up, and there is NOTHING that can replace what
we're using up. I feel a bit sad when I imagine young people
thinking that they are going to be driving cars or going into outer
space... It takes a lot of gasoline to drive a car and a lot of
energy to get into outerspace. I don't think its going to
happen. 
Is this a problem? No, not if we know what is going on so that we can take action. 
In Michigan, for example, we need to put up lots of wind powered
electric generators. If we don't, we won't have enough
electricity and we'll be all siting in the dark all the time.
People in Michigan also need to find jobs where super-high oil and
gasoline prices aren't a problem.
 For
me, I'll probably end up riding a bike or a moped to school
everyday. I won't have to worry about cars because so few people
will be paying $25/gallon, that the roads will be practically empty,
except for everyone else riding bikes and things.
Another reality is that I'm going to have to come up with a new way to
heat my home. This winter, I paid like $1,000 just for the
propane. The price of that is going up just like gasoline, so
when gasoline is $25/gallon, I'd be paying $15,000 just for heating my
home each year.
That's not going to happen because I'm going to figure out a way to
heat my house without propane. There are things called heat pumps
that pump heat into the house from out of the ground. That's one
choice I'm thinking about. Another choice is super-insulating the
house, and then making a sun room that sucks up the heat during the
sunny daytime and lets it out at night. There are actually houses
in Michigan that already do that, so I'd like to visit a few.
 The
last big reality that grocery stores and quick marts are not going to
have much food when oil gets really expensive. That's because
people aren't going to buy a $10 bunch of bananas all the way from
South America. People aren't going
to pay $20 for a pound of hamburger either. The higher the price
of oil goes, the more expensive all the food in the grocery store will
be.
The solution is that I know I can grow food of my own. I used to
help my family with a garden, and we had really good food from
it. I'm lucky and have over an acre of land that I could grow
food on. That would probably be enough food for up to 10 people
if everyone pitched in and made sure to keep the garden healthy.
Some of that food could be stored until winter time as well. I
think I'd also have a growing room on the house to grow stuff in the
winter. That would have to be different from the sun room because
the sun room would get too hot for growing plants.
 Oops,
one more issue. I think it's entirely possible that money
(dollars, pennies, etc.) might lose their value and be essentially
worthless.  This has
happened in other countries. The solution is to make a system of
buying or trading that doesn't involve money. It could be sharing
things, or having coupons to trade, or something, but money might just
be worthless.
Of course, its very difficult to predict some things in the future, and
I hope I'm wrong about all the tough things that are going to
happen. On the other hand, I don't want to be stuck not knowing
what is going on or what to do. Sitting around and whining and
complaining are not going to help anyone when things become challenging.
 This
is why its so important that people really learn things that will be
useful in the future. Skills like being a leader, knowing how to
learn new things by looking stuff up, knowing how to talk to people to
learn stuff and get them to help... all of these skills are going to be
very important. It makes me sad to think that so many people are
just floating around, playing all day long, and not really talking,
thinking, or planning about anything in the future.
So many people just watch TV, surf the net, play X-Box, and waste their
days away. I know. I've been a TV addict. I probably
have spent 10,000 hours in front of the TV. Now I feel like I've
wasted all that time. No more of that. I don't watch TV
shows anyone. I'd rather go spend time with people, and chatting,
and writing, and doing real things. I changed, so I know other
people can as well. 
 The
young people especially need to recognize that if they want a nice
world to live in, they are going to need to help take over, with other
serious good people, so that there is something left for the
future. Right now, our civilization is destoying the planet a
little piece at a time. Global warming is going through the
roof. Ice caps are melting. Hurricanes are getting worse
every year. Air and water pollution is killing people. The
horrible food that corporations sell is making everyone fat. We
are sending all our money to China and India to buy things, which means
there's no money left for people's jobs in Michigan.
We have to remember that we are doing it to ourselves. Most of us
never think about anything but "how cheap is it?" when we buy
things. Every purchase we make like that destroys the planet a
little bit more.
Its time to get serious. This planet is in our hands. We
can either use it all up, like we have been for the past few hundreds
of years, or we can take action and create a better future for
ourselves, our friends, our families, and someday, our children and
grandchildren.
Good luck and stay safe!
| | |
| Tracking Down Visitors and Lurkers using IP Addresses and TrackersOne intersting thing about having a tracker is checking out the
anonymous visitors. There is one anonymous visitor who likes to
check out this page every day or so. Click on the screenshot of
some of the visits. I've nicknamed this person "Grand Haven
Lurker"... 
Here's what I know about "Grand Haven Lurker"...
 Uses Microsoft Internet Explorer- Has a cable modem
- Has Internet through Charter Communications of Grand Haven, Michigan
- Has visited this site over ten times
-
Never visits earlier than 3:15 p.m.
- Has visited pages of at least a couple different students
- Has an IP computer address of 66.227.170.238
One nice thing about the Internet is that with the information
above, it would be very easy for the police to track down the person.
If "Grand Haven Lurker" were doing anything illegal, I
could print out the log of the visits, and take it to
the police. It would be a simple matter for the police to call up
Charter
Communications in Grand Haven, ask for the name and address for the person using the IP address
66.227.170.238. The police could nab that person within a few minutes.
"Grand Haven Lurker" might be surprised that I know that IP
(Internet Protocal) Address. Or, might be surprised that it would
be so easy for the police to match that number with their name.
In fact, everytime a person uses the Internet, the computer has an IP
address. This IP number is just like the home address of
the computer. For "always on" connections, like cable modems,
this
IP number remains the same. For dial-up modem users, this number
changes
slightly with each log in. Either way, a log is always kept
by the Internet Service Provider as to which user was using which IP
address during which period of time.
One last interesting tid-bit. Almost every major web site has
something like a tracker. These are sometimes called "hit
counters" or "visitor logs". Not only do these logs keep track of
everytime a page is viewed, they also show where the visitor came from
and then where they went to next. Click on the picture above and
look on the right side to see what I mean. Interesting, eh?
Good luck and stay safe!
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