Author Archives: alan

Robert Bryce likens his exposure of failure to make progress on the energy transition to the crowing of “Ball don’t lie!” by basketball player Rasheed Wallace when he sees failure of a free throw as justification of his claim to … Continue reading →

If I were looking for a way to convert excess nuclear power to a transportable fuel I think I’d look first at directly manufactured methane (via Sabatier process without going through the H2 intermediate step) since it is less prone … Continue reading →

Just testing

Objecting to the Israeli response is not the same as endorsing the horrors of Oct 7.  Mandana Rivka Dayani presents a fair response to supporters of Hamas, and especially of its action on Oct 7 2023. But most of the … Continue reading →

A Quora question asks: Why does it not make sense to say that 5 is a prime number and 8 is composite in this scenario: ‘There are 5 gallons of water in container A and 8 gallons of milk in … Continue reading →

Peter Rosenthal had a huge impact on my life. He taught mathematics not by showing us proofs, but by leading us through the process of discovering them for ourselves – and by doing that he led me to a rediscovered … Continue reading →

I think the Rolling Stones had a thing or two to say about this! Source: You can want things you don’t like and like things you don’t want | Psyche Ideas

Mo Husseini’s list of ‘50 Completely True Things‘ is an admirable attempt to bring some perspective (and humour?) to discussions of the current conflict in the Middle East. But leaving aside the question of whether 13th century Syria counts as … Continue reading →

. . . according to the current US left-right colour-coding of politics that is. But, according to Suzuki Elder (and my good friend) Bob Worcester, the vehicle of choice should be green. And in order to provide the necessary all-encompassing … Continue reading →

Well duh! If it costs $2.4 billion to extract “up to” 3 million tonnes per year, then at Canada’s carbon “tax” rate of $80 per ton it would take about 100 years to pay for just the capital cost of … Continue reading →

Writing in the ‘Persuasion’ Substack community, Shalom Auslander pleads  Dear Media, Stop Taking Students Too Seriously. I like the sanity of this piece – reflected in full measure by that of the author’s son. And I agree with the criticism … Continue reading →

The recent scandal at Guernica magazine was deeply embarrassing to me despite not having any involvement in or even awareness of the magazine.  This is because I know that if I had been aware of the magazine I would have … Continue reading →

One answer to a Quora question about JKRowling goes as follows: It isn’t what she herself has said, although she’s been generally insulting and has displayed great ignorance by denying the fact that the Nazis destroyed scientific literature about trans people. … Continue reading →

I expected to like this (more than 2 years) old piece by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff on the way opposing viewpoints seem to dig themselves deeper and deeper into extremes of overreach. But I was surprised to find in it … Continue reading →

It may seem to Palestinians that Western outrage over the murder of foreign food delivery workers is placing higher value on our own ethnicity than on the other victims. But it is more that by seeing the targeting of an … Continue reading →

What’s more, the grievance and resentment at the heart of Trumpist nationalism in America is in some ways quite similar to the mentality of Putinist nationalism in Russia: One obsesses over losing the culture war and being disrespected by the … Continue reading →

Apparently FortisBC is being sued over ‘deceptive’ marketing tactics regarding so-called Renewable Natural Gas. I haven’t seen what Fortis is actually offering or claiming, but capturing methane from waste dumps makes sense (and is renewable in the sense that the … Continue reading →

One doesn’t “besiege” a site that is not resisting. So the question that comes to mind here is who is returning fire and how did they get in to “defend” the hospitals? Source: Israeli forces besiege two hospitals, kill dozens … Continue reading →

John Polkinghorne’s  Quantum Theory – a Very Short Introduction is a decent enough introduction to quantum theory, but might have been even better if 30% shorter. The first two chapters are a pretty good introduction to the historical motivation and … Continue reading →

Many (but not all) anti-genocide protests are themselves genocidal (in the opposite direction), so opposing those protests does not imply endorsing what they are protesting against. And failing to recognize the genocidal aspects of an entity’s behaviour is not the … Continue reading →