Welcome To Josh's Blog O' Thoughts: May 2007

If you read Angels and Demons, the popular predecessor to the Da Vinci Code, you were probably wowed, and maybe even dumfounded, at the ambigrams used in the book. As I looked at those things it made my brain hurt just thinking about the work it must have taken to come up with them. For people who don't know, and ambigram is a drawing of a word or phrase that can be read from multiple viewing angles or perspectives. Some ambigrams can be read exactly the same when rotated 180 degrees (this is the case in Angels and Demons). Others make use of the negative space or form a different word when rotated.

Anyway, the man who created the ambigrams for Angels and Demons, John Langdon (recognize the last name), has a VERY cool website where he showcases his artwork and ambigrams. There are some really amazing pieces there. Check it out and you'll be amazed at the work this guy does. It also looks like he can be hired for custom artwork. I wonder how much it would cost to commission an ambigram of my name? That'd be a cool piece of art to hang in my house.

JohnLangdon.net

Well I just drove past my local gas station and saw that the price for unleaded Ethanol (89 octane) went up another 13 cents to $2.95 a gallon. I have never yet had to pay $3.00 a gallon and I hope prices drop a little very soon so I can keep this streak going. Comparatively, my part of the country (Iowa) has it pretty good for gas prices. This is probably partially due to the fact that we grow so much corn here that can be used in Ethanol blends. I hate to think about buying gas in Hawaii. When I was there four years ago, it was already around $2.50 a gallon.

I wonder what the recent upturn is about. I haven't heard anything about the price for crude skyrocketing. In fact, it's sitting at around $65 a barrel right now (down .7% today) and that's a bit cheaper than when we were over $70 a few months back. I also haven't heard of any natural disasters affecting supply. So what gives? Maybe anticipation for memorial day weekend? Too early probably. Maybe it's just the oil companies trying to sneak a little extra past us while other things are looking 'good' (i.e. core inflation rates stable, interest rates stable, Dow Jones setting record highs over 13,000)?

Whatever the case may be, it makes me really want a hybrid.

Saw a listing today over on Yahoo! News that listed the top ten most polluted U.S. cities. I don't think it's much of a surprise to anyone that Los Angeles is topping the list. Also on the list are Detroit and Pittsburgh, which to my brain, have always been somewhat associated with a grunginess factor.

Slightly suprising to me was that St. Louis was on the list. I have been to St. Louis and it seemed clean enough for my liking (except maybe for the Mississippi River). I was also slighltly surprised by how many midwest cities were on the list. I've always known the west coast had pollution issues, but I would have thought the east cost would be worse than the midwest based on population density. Perhaps the east coast is more forward thinking than us midwesterners and have already started reducing pollutants. After all, the east coast is the most mature portion of the country.

The European Union has called upon developing nations to cut emissions or to take actions to prevent them from creating emissions as the country develops. When thinking of CO2 emissions, people probably think of the United States. While this country is a major piece of the pie, we can't overlook the hundreds of other countries (big and small) that are also contributing to the problem.

One portion of the problem is that developing nations are more likely to have poor knowledge of how to reduce emissions. Electric plants are a prime example of this. The easiest and cheapest power plant that can be built is a coal-burning power plant. Coal-burning power plants release HUGE amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Unfortunately it is likely that in small developing countries, they find that this is their only option due to limited knowledge and financial resources.

I think it is good that the E.U. is recognizing that these countries are also contribuiting to our global problem. However, I wish everyone (including the U.S.) would take a tougher stance with emissions from the United States. Why is it that we always have to be so backward thinking?

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