the tindog coffeehouse

UT Austin has unveiled it’s new petawatt laser, “the highest powered laser in the world”, telling the previous record holder, the University of Michigan’s wimpy 300 terawatt version, “Don’t mess with Texas… or we’ll nuke your ass.” (To paraphrase.)

So what do you do with a laser that massive? Use it to justify hiking tuition rates of course!

Left: A UT spokesman shows off a model of the “laser” at a press conference.

Thank you, BusinessWeek, for having the guts to call out the federal government for pushing the myth of dwindling oil supplies as the cause of high gas prices. Actually, supplies are way up and demand is down. So why the high prices? Speculation in the oil futures commodity market:

Instead, the Bush administration is protecting those responsible for creating yet another speculative bubble in oil futures, and is protecting investors in the ethanol industry—much to the detriment of food-processing companies such as Pilgrim’s Pride. And the net result of all this is that the prices of crude and gasoline rise ever higher thanks to a “shortage” that does not exist, while food costs are soaring thanks in part to the ethanol mandate.

Rising oil and gas prices are a huge reason for the slowing economy and threaten to push us into serious stagflation. And while it’s nice to get a tax rebate in the mail, that’s not going to do anything to address the systemic problems that caused this problem in the first place. Yes, the subprime meltdown is also to blame (still not sure why we, the taxpayers, should bail out Bear Stearns), but the government could quickly help get the economy back on its feet by going after the oil speculators instead of crucifying oil company executives like they did on Capitol Hill yesterday.

I wrote a post back in December about social networking sites like Facebook and the issue of personal privacy. At the time I wrote that I didn’t have an account on any of these sites and didn’t see the need to. That’s changed.

I recently signed up for both Facebook and LinkedIn. I had been considering LinkedIn for a few days as a way to put my resume out there and use it to possibly find a new job down the road. In other words, as a business networking tool. Meanwhile, my wife had signed up on Facebook while looking for some old friends of hers. As a result, I decided to also sign up for Facebook for personal use.

One of the main arguments for joining these sites is that they are very commonplace, particularly with teens and those in their 20s, and they will continue to be more so as time goes on. It’s just the evolution of technology.

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