Babeled

A letter from Jeff to the Babelonians.

On the first Tuesday of every month the Babelers will be hosting a Babeled On virtual sit-down that will incorporate the mindless drivel of our Founders.

Each month one such Babeler will enter into the Fortress of Solitude and ruminate over a topic that will be submitted to the other Babelers for consideration.

All responses will be handled via direct e-mail so that no discussion can take place between the Babelers until all replies are back in the hands of the topic creator.  This is to maintain the integrity of the discussion and to keep our thoughts in a vacuum.

The responses will then be amassed into post form for all to read and mock.  Every Founding Babeler minus the one who decided upon the topic will respond in whatever manner they deem appropriate.

Once all responses are prepared for release to the masses, the De facto Inquisitor of the monthly Babeled On Series will tag another Babeler who will be responsible for administering the following month’s discussion.

Let’s Get to It

Although this month’s topic is simple in nature it took me some time to come up with this question. It wasn’t until a mid-day quest to Taco Bell that the question became apparent - What is the Greatest Invention of all Time?

Andrew Blanco

The greatest invention of all time is the toilet and the public sanitation system in general. I’m immensely grateful for being born in a time where there is an infrastructure that keeps excrement off the streets. I think it’s safe to say that public sanitation systems have helped reduce the risk of disease and global epidemics, and likewise have contributed to the insane population growth of the last century.

Jason Morgan

The wire hanger is undoubtedly the greatest invention of all time. The wire hanger has found itself assisting people in many predicaments that are a far cry from the intended purpose of hanging clothes. Wire coat hangers are the ultimate all-purpose tool that can be molded to fit the unique needs of a given problem. I have used wire hangers to fix a sink, opened locked doors (home and car), puncture things (not illegally), assemble furniture, substitute for pipe-strap, dispense corporal punishment to underlings, and, of course, hang clothes. Wire hanger, I think I love you.

Gregory Rineberg

This is a tough question… There are just too many choices. Going with something mechanical and inventive I would have to say the “Greatest Invention of All Time” is the Gutenberg Printing Press. Developed at the start of the Renaissance Period, this invention allowed information and thoughts to spread quickly throughout the known world. In turn this invention was great for mankind because it allowed minds to flourish with knowledge and creativity.

Greg Molyneux

Without question it is the paper airplane. The Wrong Sisters did it right back in Nineteen Ought Three (1903 to the ill-informed, uneducated, and malnourished). The impact paper airplanes left on society would prove to be devastating. Open wounds, gouged eyeballs, paper cuts, and unpredictable flight plans would dash the hopes and dreams of civilians everywhere. In fact, it was such a travesty it was glorious.

After World War II, profound modifications came to the paper airplane; watershed additions like the paper clip, folded wing tips, jet propolsion and the advent of construction paper would turn mere enthusiasts into aviation immortals. This was a Golden Era for the United States.

Unfortunately, the honeymoon was not to last. During the Vietnam Conflict, paper airplanes were deployed without the ability to dogfight. Military strategists grossly miscalculated the ongoing need for close flight engagements that were the hallmark during the Second World War and Korea, where American kill ratios were 12:1. Vietnam saw that number drop to 3:1 all because the F4 Paper Phantom was not originally equipped with a machine gun.  This left the Phantom vulnerable to highly manuverable Paper Migs.  The close quarter combat manuvers rendered heat-seeking paper a liability at close range.

Fortunately, our paper aviation initiative was back on track when space-aged paper spy planes and paper stealth technologies were born out of Cold War proliferation. Once the high altitude U2 Paper Spy Plane was shot down by Lego Communists a drastic change was needed. Thanks in large part to the covert Skunk Works Paper Foundries, transparencies were used to create planes that neither radar nor eyes could see.

Without paper we could not write upon the planes we fly.

Jack Gamble

Without a doubt, the greatest fruit of man’s collective genius is “Big Mouth Billy Bass.” What better way to usher in the next great age of human enlightenment that an unassuming dead trophy largemouth suddenly reanimated with the divine purpose of singing the classics while flapping its fins.

Genius!

Next Month

Tag, you’re it Jay.

Image Used in this Post

Lego Spacemen image courtesy of Flickr user Gaetan Lee published under the CC license.

On November 3, 2008 the New York Times published a letter by one Paul R Epstein, an Instructor in Medicine at Harwavrd University, in which he does his best to conjure up fear using tainted information to scare the public away from Nuclear Energy.

Well, Mr. Epstein, in the words of the great Samuel L. Jackson – “Please, allow me to retort.”

The three reasons he cites are safety, storage, and security. In the interests of being systematic, I shall dissect these false assumptions one at a time:

1. Safety: Mr. Epstein does not mention one iota of fact or one single statistic on this issue. He simply and briefly calls Nuclear “unsafe” and then moves on. Why, you ask? Could it be because there has not been one single public death in nearly 40 years of operation in the American nuclear industry?

To put that in perspective, according to the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission, one child died in 2004 by means of suffocation under a pile of stuffed animals. Given this data, it can be said that more members of the public are killed annually in the United States by Teddy Bears than Nuclear Energy! Surely Mr. Epstein will now publish a dissertation citing the inherent risks to the public posed by Teddy Ruckspin and the corporate conspiracy surrounding Mr. Ruckspin that the government is covering up.  Right, Paul?

2. Storage: Epstein says, “Ten seismic faults lie within a 20-mile radius of Yucca Mountain.” I’m sorry Mr. Epstein, but earthquakes do not destroy mountains. It is very easy to say earthquake and nuclear waste in the same sentence, but I would like to see some documentation as to what exactly an earthquake would do to a hardened facility underneath a mountain other than a potential cave in. Ok, so it caved in. Now what? It’s still buried isn’t it? So what happened? Nothing.

3. Security: Again he offers no facts to support his claim. He merely calls it “insurmountable.” Now observe as I surmount. Anyone who has been to an American Nuclear Power Plant since 9/11 will tell you that there is no more protected facility on this Earth. Besides that, If you claim terrorism as a reason to deny us this resource than you and the New York Times are guilty of using terrorism to scare the public into submission. This, after all, is the same newspaper that accuses President George W. Bush of doing exactly that. I’ve said it before and I will say it again – terrorism is a terrible excuse to not do something. Besides, there are far easier targets that would produce far more damage and visibility than an attack at a nuclear site.

He goes on throughout his letter to try to use issues like startup cost and the environment to make it seem impossible to make nuclear work. What he does not mention is that nuclear is the cleanest means of generating any significant amount of energy available to us. Also, he forgets to tell you that the Nuclear Industry has operated for decades without government subsidies while wind, solar, and Ethanol have all been given grotesque sums of taxpayer dollars for research and development and are still unable to compete with a self sustaining nuclear industry.

Rest assured ladies and gentlemen, people like Dr. Epstein and Alec Baldwin can ramble on and on using words that scare children and statistics that don’t hold water. However, this Babeler believes that most Americans are smart enough to listen to science instead of fear. One day, America will achieve energy independence and Nuclear Power will be at the center of it.

~Man Overboard

Recently at Babeled we have added a new feature that is not so new - Gravatars (globally recognized avatar).  These beauties are the little avatars (images) that you can now see in the comment section of all of the posts on our site.  Since we are a multi-author blog it seemed appropriate for us to add some pictures of ourselves in a hopeless effort of bringing a little more personality to this place.

Of course, we want to encourage everyone else to do the same.  The steps are simple and the service is FREE.  All one must do to obtain the almighty Gravatar is follow this simple incantation:

1. Traverse the perils of space, time, and the internets to gravatar.com
2. Select the link to Sign up now! - Do not be fooled as it is cleverly named Sign up now!
3. Enter in the e-mail address you use when commenting on various blogs or sites supporting Gravatars.
4. In moments you will receive a confirmation e-mail from Gravatar sent to said address asking you to merrily click the link for activation of your new Gravatar account.
5. Now simply upload a picture, crop it to your liking, click finish and wait a few minutes for your Gravatar to appear.

Once the blood, sweat, and tears that five minutes of sitting down can bring has passed - you too can look like a tool cool when babeling on our site.

Northrop Grumman announced last week that it has teamed up with AREVA, the largest Nuclear Energy producer in the world and backbone of the French Nuclear Industry.  The joint venture will be known as AREVA Newport News LLC.  

This company will combine the depth of French nuclear expertise provided by AREVA with the manufacturing technology and large skilled labor force of Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding.  The resulting powerhouse will provide the manufacturing capacity necessary to usher in the American Nuclear Renaissance.

This new joint venture will provide a means of building the largest components of nuclear reactors right here in the USA.  It will have the capacity to produce Reactor Vessels, Steam Generators, and Pressurizes - the critical components in Pressurized Water reactors (PWRs).

Currently, there is only one such facility in the entire world, Japan Steel Works.  This world-wide lack of manufacturing capacity has caused a bottleneck in production due the expanding nuclear industry in Europe, China, and India with US companies scrambling to merely buy a place in line in the event the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) grants licenses for new nuclear power plant construction here in the United States.

The new Virginia facility, which will begin construction in early 2009, will demonstrate just how powerful an effect the Nuclear Renaissance can have on the US economy, environmental stewardship, and most importantly energy independence!

Already AREVA Newport News LLC plans to invest $363.4 million for construction.  Building the facility will produce 540 new high paying jobs, with additional jobs created to staff the plant.  Additional stimuli to the economy include road construction and job training programs to support plant operations and construction.

The new outfit will take advantage of existing infrastructure in the area including skilled labor from local ship builders, and transportation via air, rail, and sea.

But perhaps the most important benefit of this new operation is American workers will be building American nuclear reactors to promote American energy independence and at the same time help to pull the American economy out of a slump.

With a 30-year safety record behind it, The American Nuclear Industry has shown it can meet our current and future energy demands. This announcement is just one more indicator of the growing support for the Nuclear Industry here in America. Rising fuel prices, climate change, and national security all feed into this growing sentiment of approval for clean, safe, and reliable nuclear energy.  

As a patriot and young professional in the nuclear industry there is little I can do to hide my excitement over the potential this new facility holds for my career, my environment, and my country.

~Man Overboard

This past September I babeled on how the majority of American’s believe their quality of life, and their productivity in general, is greatly improved by the use of Personal Digital Assistants.  In that post I concluded that we are witnessing the beginning of what will be a radical revolution in what it means to work.

This month I want to discuss a new study that sheds light on how cell phones and the internet are bringing the human family closer together as we begin the 21st Century.

According to recent research by the Pew Internet & American Life Project,

• 89% of married-with-children households own multiple cell phones, and nearly half own three or more mobile devices
• 66% of married-with-children households have a high speed broadband internet connection at home.
• 70% of couples in which both partners own a cell phone contact each other daily to say hello or chat
• 42% of parents contact their children on a daily basis using a cell phone, making cell phones the most popular communications tool between parents and children

Clearly physical distance, the great barrier to communication in past epochs, has been conquered.  With a cell phone turned on, a person can be reached pretty much anywhere on the planet.  And one day, when internet and cell phone coverage has spread to all households on all continents, there won’t be a soul who can’t enjoy the novelty of instant communication.

The Good: Instant Gratification

The popularity of mobile phones and the internet has everything to do with freedom.  These devices allow us to communicate whenever the desire arises, and there’s nothing like instant gratification to increase an object’s popularity.

For families and couples, these devices are that much more tempting because they have the potential to decrease the amount of time spent worrying about the status of loved ones. If there’s a bomb scare at school your kids can call you immediately.  If your lover gets in an accident on the highway they can call you immediately.  If your buddy goes to order White Castle for the party but he forgets what you wanted, your instructions are just a phone call away.

The Bad: Instant Gratification

Long gone are the days of the carrier pigeon.  Long gone are the days of patience and personal space.  The fact is, the freedom mobile devices grant us is really a double-edged sword.

With the ability to initiate communication whenever we want we open ourselves to a potentially endless onslaught from the outside world.  Yes, we can always just turn the phone off and let every call go straight to voicemail. But, at the end of the day we must always return to our phone and our messages.  We must always call back.

This issue becomes especially apparent when dealing with people who have convinced themselves that instant communication is a necessity, rather than the privilege that it truly is.  With these people, it practically becomes a mortal sin to not return a message or phone call immediately after it has been received.

The Bottom Line

Time is running out to maintain any semblance of “old-world” personal space.  As the wheel of time moves on, so will global dependency on instant communication.  Future generations born into an ever-connected world will lack any memory of a life without the ability to instantly communicate whenever they feel like it.  What effect this will have, only time can tell.  But, I’m gonna go out on a limb and predict a future ripe with global ADD.

Good night, and good luck.