Roundup 1/28/08

The Hulk-out list. A compilation of the events that caused David Banner to get angry and Hulk-out.

38. Placed in a small room with a ravenous black panther

44. Kicking over a beehive and then being surprised when the bees are mad at
him

47. Being stuck in a cab in New York rush hour traffic - "You don't understand, I
have to be there by 4:00!" - "Hey, mac, it's rush hour, we ain't gettin' there til five,
so relax." - "BUT I HAVE TO BE THERE BY FOUR!!!"

84. Being placed in a room that is filled with carbon monoxide gas

Oddly, after writing about former Sen. Chaffee yesterday, I saw an environmental talk today by the guy who beat him, Sheldon Whitehouse. He seemed very direct. At one point someone asked him a hopeful question that most people would probably try to give a fuzzy, indirect answer to. Whitehouse just said, "No, I don't know anything about that" and moved on. So that was cool. Not as cool was his saying that he doesn't support nuclear power (though he admitted he might be mistaken). If climate change is the global catastrophe it is supposed to be, windmills and florescent lightbulbs aren't going to do it. Making cars as efficient as they already are in most other western nations by "2025" or whatever isn't going to do it either. And people aren't going to change their lifestyles. Wind, wave, hydroelectric, and solar, even at maximum capacity will not be enough. That calculation you do in intro modern physics about how much power you get out a pound of uranium (~4.7 gazillion volts, if I remember correctly) must be designed to brainwash young scientists into liking nuclear energy.

New Material Pushes the Limits of Blackness.

Made from tiny tubes of carbon standing on end, this material is almost 30 times darker than a carbon substance used by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology as the current benchmark of blackness.

What we need to do here, is take this material, slap in on the outside of some animal-human hybrids, and have them terrorize ordinary, hardworking Americans. People don't want to fund science unless they are panicked.

Update: As Jere pointed out in the comments, Bill Lee beat me to the punch on the carbon nanotube story, as he usually does.