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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2024

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  • So I’ve had this thought for 20+ years but can’t seem to get it to work. Maybe someone smarter than me can make it work.

    The Curie point of Gadolinium is around room temperature. If you put a high powered magnet on one end and then generate some external heat and an include a spring (or crank arm) on the magnetic end, you could produce a piston, similar to a sterling engine.

    Now, if you add this cooling material as a heat sink, you could likely rapidly cool the gadolinium material back below the Curie point, making a more efficient engine, perhaps even producing something that could do a bit of work.

    I made some prototypes back in the day, but the ferromagnetic material would always eventually get locked with the magnets. My rudimentary engineering skills could never get the external heat source quite right. Perhaps someone with a bit more ingenuity will take this and run with it.

    Also, old broken microwaves are a great way to salvage some pretty strong magnets.

    And be careful when handling gadolinium, it’s known to cause kidney and nerve damage.










  • I’m much more a fan of the PBS/NPR underwriting model. Tell me who deliberately funds the show or video.

    When the advertisement is so divorced from the show, is not relevant to the conversation or is not relevant to me, then the andvertisers are wasting their money.

    If you show me the same ad over and over again, I am actually more likely to NOT buy that branded product or service because I’ve become so annoyed and numb from the ad taking what little time I have on this planet that I will actively boycott it.

    However, I do have a nice space mug from PBS, a plot of land on Mars, the moon and Scotland, and a t-shirt for the Truth podcast to prove that I will spend money when the advertising is relevant to the content I’m consuming. So if you want the ad to work, invest your dollars directly into the content and providers I care about.

    But for the love of everything, do not think for a moment that your contribution gives you license to control their messaging or content.









    • Energy demand to power heavy industry that we all use (steel, aluminum, chemicals, fertilizers)
      • I don’t see these going away, so it’d be best to make their processes greener by repurposing the carbon into ag products, then institute a viable carbon tax and offset the rest of their footprint
    • Use of concrete in construction
      • some promising technologies coming that crystallize the carbon and use it to self heal the concrete, carbon tax and offset the rest
    • Shipping
      • bring manufacturing closer to consumers, global environmental manufacturing and shipping standards, improve right to repair laws
    • Transportation
      • upgrade public transportation options where it makes economic sense to do so, make our cities and towns more people friendly instead of car friendly, raise the gas tax to fund these efforts. Reduce the amount of detached single family housing stock and encourage multi-family stock, particularly in cities.
    • Heating and cooling
      • incentivize heat pumps, add taxes to heating fuels and fossil energy plants to fund it. Start a major campaign to educate people to keep temperatures around 68 (winter) to 76 degrees (summer). And encourage use of ceiling fans.