The Battle

This video is a poignant expression of the battle that rages for an unbelievers heart. It especially brought to mind friends of mine who have battled with drugs and alcohol. It's a wonderful visual of how hard the world can grip us, and how much Christ wants a relationship with us.

Kiva: Loans that Change Lives

Have you ever thought about how unfair it was that you were born into relative wealth?(relative being to the rest of the world)

Have you ever felt the burden to help those in third world poverty but had no idea how?

With all the corruption in third world governments it seems almost impossible for me to actually make a difference in someone's life.

Well, I think it just got a little easier.

I read an article this morning about an amazing idea to change peoples lives. Read this article, and then go to Kiva's website to learn more. I think it's an amazing idea.

imaginary reality

Here's the link to a really interesting article with a very thought provoking conclusion. It's about how our eyes have a blind spot caused by our optic nerve connecting to our retina. It's got some neat experiments you can do to "find" that blind spot.

I've never seen "Lord of War", so this is in no way intended to endorse that movie. It just made me think, so I thought I'd share.

So much for the 30 year laptop battery

Here's a story that's doing the rounds on the blogs - Scientists Invent 30 Year Continuous Power Laptop Battery.

The story is written in peculiarly convoluted prose, but appears to be saying that a breakthrough in nuclear energy technology means that we'll all be running around with magic batteries in mobile and laptop, in "two to three years". They'll be perfectly safe, will save the world, and will probably last longer than you will.

Sadly, no. As with the best techno-rubbish, there is a story in there, but you'll be pootling around the skies in jetpacks before you're powering your Dell from neutron decay.

That story is betavoltaics. This is a way of generating electricity much as solar cells generate power from photons, only by using high energy electrons generated from the beta decay of certain radio-isotopes. If you pick your isotope well -- the examples given use tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen - the other decay products are inert, and in theory you can generate useful amounts of power for a reasonable length of time. As with every radioactive system, it has a half-life depending on the isotope; tritium's half-life is around twelve years, so every decade or so your battery will halve in power - but that won't change, no matter how little or much power you take out in the duration.

Beats Duracell, right?

Again, sadly, no. There are a few small problems.

Continue story here.

Zimbabwe's last white farmers face final push

Ringed by a clutch of Zimbabwean soldiers clicking automatic weapons, Charles Lock handed over the keys to his farm and drove off his land for the last time.

Scores of white farmers, the last survivors of President Robert Mugabe's land grab, and thousands of their black workers are going through similar agonies.

They now face the final deadline. As from today, any white farmer still on his land will be deemed to be trespassing on state property.

All agricultural land was officially nationalized last year — with the seizure to take effect from Oct 1 this year.

In advance of this deadline, Zimbabwe's army and the Central Intelligence Organization have been tormenting the last handful of white farmers and their workers.

About 50 have been summoned to appear at magistrates' courts. Some have surrendered their farms and homes in despair in the last few weeks.
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Mr Lock, however, is determined to fight on. "I may have been forced to go but I will continue to fight in the courts," he said. "I have five court orders allowing me to stay."

Continue the article here.

Zimbabwe runs out of Bread

Zimbabwe's bakeries have shut and supermarkets have warned there will be no bread for the foreseeable future as the government admitted that wheat production had collapsed following the seizure of white-owned farms.

The agricultural ministry announcement that the wheat harvest is only about a third of what is required, and that imports are held up by lack of hard currency, came as a deadline passed today for the last white farmers to leave their land or face prosecution for trespass.

The maize harvest is expected to be equally dire and price controls to contain hyperinflation have emptied the stores of most other foodstuffs. The World Food Programme says at least 3 million people - one in four of the population - will need food aid in the coming months. It describes hunger in some parts of the country, which used to be a food exporter, as "acutely serious"

Continue Article

30 Year Continuous Power Laptop Battery

Your next laptop could have a continuous power battery that lasts for 30 years without a single recharge thanks to work being funded by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory. The breakthrough betavoltaic power cells are constructed from semiconductors and use radioisotopes as the energy source. As the radioactive material decays it emits beta particles that transform into electric power capable of fueling an electrical device like a laptop for years.

Although betavoltaic batteries sound Nuclear they’re not, they’re neither use fission/fusion or chemical processes to produce energy and so (do not produce any radioactive or hazardous waste). Betavoltaics generate power when an electron strikes a particular interface between two layers of material. The Process uses beta electron emissions that occur when a neutron decays into a proton which causes a forward bias in the semiconductor. This makes the betavoltaic cell a forward bias diode of sorts, similar in some respects to a photovoltaic (solar) cell. Electrons scatter out of their normal orbits in the semiconductor and into the circuit creating a usable electric current.

The profile of the batteries can be quite small and thin, a porous silicon material is used to collect the hydrogen isotope tritium which is generated in the process. The reaction is non-thermal which means laptops and other small devices like mobile phones will run much cooler than with traditional lithium-ion power batteries. The reason the battery lasts so long is that neutron beta-decay into protons is the world's most concentrated source of electricity, truly demonstrating Einstein’s theory E=MC2.

The best part about these cells are when they eventually run out of power they are totally inert and non-toxic, so environmentalists need not fear these high tech scientific wonder batteries. If all goes well plans are for these cells to reach store shelves in about 2 to 3 years.