From the Boston Globe:

So what’s wrong with GM? The cars. GM is famous for being run by bean counters and ad men. Toyota is run by engineers.

I take no joy in GM’s fall or Toyota’s rise. America, after all, is capable of engineering sublime consumer products such as the iPod and such complex manufacturing achievements as the Boeing 777. I was the satisfied owner of two Ford Tauruses, proof that American engineers and auto workers can make economic, high-quality cars.

I never subscribed to former GM president “Engine Charlie” Wilson’s oft-misquoted assertion that what’s good for the country is good for GM . But what’s bad about GM is tragically bad for America, its workers, their communities, and for American leadership in manufacturing.

From an interview in Science Online:

SCIENCELINE: What is so wrong with string theory that you feel it

From Ecoworld:

Will Biofuel Replace Crude Oil? There is a lot of discussion these days about biofuel, and there should be. Biofuel is an excellent fuel – it burns cleaner than petroleum-based fuels and is easier on the internal combustion engine. Moreover, we can grow biofuel, which means it is totally renewable. But can biofuel completely replace crude oil?

The answer, at least for now, is absolutely not. As the table below shows, even if a fairly high-yielding biofuel crop were planted all over the world, yielding 1,000 barrels of oil per year per square mile, and even if this biofuel were grown on every available scrap of farmland on earth, we would only replace 20% of the energy we’re currently getting from crude oil. The algebra is immutable – about 10% of the world’s land area consists of arable farmland, about 5.7 million square miles. If 100% of that land was planted with biofuel crops yielding 1,000 barrels of oil per square mile, each year that would produce 5.7 billion barrels of biofuel. But world consumption of crude oil currently stands at 85 million barrels per day, which equates to 31 billion barrels per year. Biofuel will greatly supplement crude oil supplies, and is an important part of future energy solutions, but that’s as far as it goes.

Here’s a diagram that shows how much space is required to transport large amounts of people. To transport 15,000 people per hour in private cars on a freeway takes 7 lanes (as I read the graph) and a roadway 150 feet wide, but you could transport that many people with light rail in an area only 25 feet. It’s too bad that people aren’t robots. It is too bad that everyone doesn’t want to live in a high rise. Because in the real world, you don’t get that kind of public transit ridership. The reason is that today, the majority of jobs are in the suburbs, not the central cities. Subway (which I ride everyday) or light rail, does a good job at taking large amount of people from one location to another. The problem is that in the United States, he don’t have the population densities or the work densities necessary.

It’s worse when you look at the costs of the different systems. Roads, because they are so big, should be really expensive. But road users pay enough in gas taxes to pay for our road system. Rail, however, is a money loser everywhere (except Osaka, Japan I believe). It blows my mind that the Metro (subway) can’t pay for itself when it is crammed during rush hour, but it doesn’t pay for itself in Washington, DC, and it doesn’t pay for itself anywhere else in America. Metro doesn’t even cover its operating costs, let alone capital costs.

This graph is a nice trip down fantasy lane. But, the lesson for today is–people are not robots. If this logic worked, then we should show another graph that shows what a small area people could live in if we all lived in high-rise apartments. The exercise doesn’t consider the real world.

I wish I had an imagination as vivid as this man’s. I started reading the article, The Battery Powered Car, and I can’t figure out if it is a joke or not. The article starts like it is an informative article, but somewhere along the way the author becomes detached from reality. He writes:

The advanced electric car can be built using advanced technology and materials – a lightweight ultra-strong frame, aerodynamic exoskeleton, in-wheel motors with independent 360 degree wheel rotation in all four wheels, driver control by wire, autopilot, lithium ion batteries, photovoltaic sides and windows, the works.

True, and dilithium crystals could be our next great source of energy. Read the rest of the article, especially the last few paragraphs. And don’t forget to check out the diagrams.

I can’t resist pointing out–this guy wants to create “The 100% Electric Car” but he wants to include a 10 horsepower electric generator in the car to recharge the batteries while he’s driving. Huh? I would love to see this vehicle on the road, but sadly I never will.

Joseph Stiglitz, a Noble Prize winning economist, has written an interesting article arguing that a medical prize fund could improve the financing of drug innovations. The prizes would be funded by the governments of advanced industrial countries and the prize winner would not own the intellectual property to the drugs or treatments.

This is an interesting idea, and I would endorse the plan if private individuals, not governments, financed it. Bureaucrats don

The Washington Post has a story today that says that the “Democrats Pledge to Restrain Spending.” I’ve never trusted the Democrats on fiscal issues (not that I trust the Republicans that much. But, if this Democrats want to hold the majority for a while, they need to exercise fiscal restraint. The real question is–will this biggest supporters allow it?

I hate a few words, one of which is “ping.” Ping is an okay word if used to discuss a brand of golf equipment or to talk about “pinging” a server. Ping, however, should never be used to mean “to receive an email from” or “to recieve a phone call from.”

I was reading Digg I saw the following sentence and almost vomited. “A friend pinged me and said he’d gotten a call from a Microsoft recruiter trying to fill a position…” I love one this response in the comments, “pinged”? What are you, a f*ing robot or something?”