Big Art

I just ran across an artist whose work is new to me: Eric Grohe. He specializes in large-scale murals, such as the one shown a far right (click for a larger view). This mural now covers the plain brick wall shown in the left-hand photo. Amazing, isn’t it?

From the Eric Grohe website:

Eric Grohe Murals Working in cooperation with architects, designers, art commissions and community representatives, Eric Grohe creates mural art that transforms the environment and communities as well. He believes that his art should involve, challenge and inspire the viewer; not simply adorn, but integrate with its architectural surroundings.

The large public mural projects are painted on site and typically take several months, giving the local community a unique opportunity to witness the day-to-day creation of a work of art.

Mr. Grohe continues to refine the technologies, methods and equipment that ensure the permanence and cost effectiveness of his work. For large-scale exterior projects, he prefers to use Keim Mineral Paint from Germany. Murals painted in the 19th century with Keim have retained their original appearance to this day. The paint crystallizes into mineral substrates and will not fade, peel or blister. Mr. Grohe is one of just a few muralists in the country skilled in the use of this unique and superior paint.

Grohe murals are designed to endure, for the enjoyment of generations to come.

There are many more photos up on Eric Grohe’s site — worth a visit…

Quote of the Day

From the Mudville Gazette:

"because as I look around at the state of this nation and see all of the weak little pampered candy-asses that are whining about this or protesting that, I’d be afraid to leave the fate of this nation entirely up to them."

First Lieutenant Bruce Bishop, on the reason why he’s going to stay in the National Guard.

Bruce, from us out here in the hustings: you da man!

Fatally Wounded

ScrappleFace nails it again:

"The Bush foreign policy continues to be fatally-wounded by clarity of purpose, dogged persistence and a pathetic failure to capitulate in the face of opposition. At a time when a real leader would be paralyzed with self-doubt over the meaningless deaths of 2,000 American troops, Bush continues to act as if freeing 25 million Iraqis from decades of oppression, torture and death is somehow worth the price paid by those who volunteered to fight."

Read the whole thing right now!

Mountweazels

Suppose you publish a valuable reference work — one that required a large investment to create, and therefore is worth protecting? For example, if you publish an encyclopedia or a dictionary, you don’t want other publishers to simply copy your hard work.

I would have guessed that there really wasn’t a big problem here, as it would seem obvious on inspection that a work had been copied. But apparently this is not the case. In fact, the publishers resort to inserting fake articles in encyclopedias, and fake words in dictionaries, precisely so that they can prove in court that a work was copied and not independently created.

The New Yorker has an interesting piece on this phenomenon, talking about the search for the fake words in the New Oxford American Dictionary. There’s quite a debate going on in the world of lexicographical authorities.

Oh, and Mountweazels — here’s the explanation for that:

Turn to page 1,850 of the 1975 edition of the New Columbia Encyclopedia and you’ll find an entry for Lillian Virginia Mountweazel, a fountain designer turned photographer who was celebrated for a collection of photographs of rural American mailboxes titled “Flags Up!” Mountweazel, the encyclopedia indicates, was born in Bangs, Ohio, in 1942, only to die “at 31 in an explosion while on assignment for Combustibles magazine.”

If Mountweazel is not a household name, even in fountain-designing or mailbox-photography circles, that is because she never existed. “It was an old tradition in encyclopedias to put in a fake entry to protect your copyright,” Richard Steins, who was one of the volume’s editors, said the other day. “If someone copied Lillian, then we’d know they’d stolen from us.”

Miers

I am neutral on the Miers nomination.

The statement above will register my stand on the Truth Laid Bear’s survey.

I’ve been staying well away from this blogobattle, as I’m not particularly well-armed. Of course I want to get the best possible replacement for O’Connor — but we could argue all day about what “best” means, and I have no independent way to judge Miers. On the one hand, I’m inclined to trust President Bush’s judgment on judges (he’s done very well there, so far as I can tell); on the other hand, many pundits and bloggers whose opinions I have great respect for are passionately opposed. So I’m stuck in the middle on Miers, and there I think I’ll stay…

Rosa Parks, RIP

Rosa Parks — that name instantly conjures intense feelings and images for me. Her famous, courageous act of defiance in 1955 was followed by many years of dignified activism. She was an altogether admirable person.

I was only three years old in 1955, so of course I do not remember the actual event that made her a household name. And we did not discuss civil rights in the home where I grew up; at least, not that I can remember. My first recollection of Rosa Parks is from elementary school, where my fourth grade teacher (Mrs. Fitzpatrick) told her story in an attempt to get the all-white class to understand a little bit about racial discrimination and segregation. Mainly what I got from her story was this: Mrs. Fitzpatrick clearly thought Rosa Parks was a saint walking upon the earth.

A few years later, in high school and beyond, I started reading a lot of history; a habit and a hobby which continues to this day. My first readings of history were of two events that I had much curiousity about: the American civil rights movement, and World War II. Rosa’s place in the civil rights movement is well-documented in zillions of places; I won’t repeat it here. But for me (and many others) she was a kind of icon of the civil rights movement: both an inspiration and a continuing force. And her abiding, overriding dignity struck me profoundly, especially by contrast with some of the more flamboyant or radical black leaders. A world full of people like Rosa would be a world full of peace, love, and tolerance. Her life helped change our world in very positive ways; she will be missed and mourned…

Wikipedia has a good article on Rosa Parks.

The blogosphere takes note:

Michelle Malkin has a roundup.

TigerHawk connects two daughters of Alabama.

Althouse has a commenter who says:

Notwithstanding the efforts of M L King and other purported black leaders, Rosa Parks’ simple act of civil disobedience (refusing to give up her bus seat for a white man) was the tipping point in the advancement of civil rights in America. She should inspire us all to appreciate how personal courage can lead to extraordinary public legacies.

God bless you Ms Parks!

La Shawn Barber has a roundup and commentary.

Parks and her husband Raymond didn’t have children, as far as I can tell from news accounts of her life. In a way, I suppose those she inspired to stand up to injustice were her offspring. Once people understand the power they have in a free country, the moral authority to demand justice, watch out. I once heard this line from a movie: “Change the way people think, and things will never be the same.”

Whatever her reasons that fateful day, I glad she decided to stay in her seat.

Kate at Small Dead Animals says “They don’t make civil rights leaders like they used to.

Outside the Beltway has a brief history, and says:

The civil rights leaders of today pale in comparison to Parks and her compatriots. I was born a decade after Parks' act of defiance and went to school, mostly in the South, in schools that had recently desegregated. By that time, the culture had changed sufficiently that the idea of segregated institutions was inconceivable.

Rest in peace.

Rest in peace, Rosa Parks…

Running on Metal

The two big problems with hydrogen power for cars are these:

1. Where does the hydrogen come from?

2. How do you store hydrogen in the car?

A group of Israelis at a company called Engineuity believe they have the answer.

From IsraCast:

The Hydrogen car Engineuity is working on will use metals such as Magnesium or Aluminum which will come in the form of a long coil. The gas tank in conventional vehicles will be replaced by a device called a Metal-Steam combustor that will separate Hydrogen out of heated water. The basic idea behind the technology is relatively simple: the tip of the metal coil is inserted into the Metal-Steam combustor together with water where it will be heated to very high temperatures. The metal atoms will bond to the Oxygen from the water, creating metal oxide. As a result, the Hydrogen molecules are free, and will be sent into the engine alongside the steam.

Now this is very clever, solving both of the core problems with one not-so-exotic technique. In this solution, the hydrogen comes from water — no problem there, we’ve got plenty of water all over the place, especially if the system can use salt water. And what could be easier or safer to store than water? One of the major problems facing most hydrogen storage ideas is “hydrogen density": how much hydrogen can you pack into a given volume?

The approach to hydrogen storage I’ve seen most often discussed is to use metal hydrides, especially magnesium. Such a system could hold about 8% of its weight in hydrogen. A practical car would need something like 40 pounds of hydrogen in a full tank. With a magnesium hydride storage system, that means you’d need 500 pounds of “fuel”. Much worse, though, is this: the magnesium hydride system is a very exotic, still unproven technology. It’s prone to contamination problems and longevity problems. And nobody is really sure what would happen in the event of an accident.

For this Israeli system, the hydrogen is about 11% of the weight of the water — so you’d need 360 pounds of water to hold 40 pounds of hydrogen. In addition, you’d need 480 pounds of magnesium, or 360 pounds of aluminum, to “soak up” all that oxygen in the water. So in total you’d need 720 to 840 pounds of “fuel” — more than the magnesium hydride system, but not exotic and very safe.

The numbers I quote above are not in the IsraCast article; I derived these from first principles using just the assumption that 40 pounds of hydrogen is roughly the same energy content as a tank of gasoline in a modern car. I’m not assuming any radical improvements in overall efficiency, or any radical changes in what drivers find desirable in a car. In other words, my starting point is to duplicate today’s car, but with hydrogen technology.

The IsraCast article paints a much more optimistic picture, without backing it up. For example, they say that to refuel the car would typically require 220 pounds of metal. Tey also claim that this should cost no more than filling your tank with gasoline — I don’t know where they buy their aluminum or magnesium, but in these parts you won’t be buying it for anything like $0.25/pound (if you believe their 220 pound claim), much less $0.10/pound (if you believe my numbers). This looks expensive to me, unless someone comes up with a way to radically reduce the cost of producing the metal.

Which brings me to one last point: while this clever Israeli technique neatly solves the core car problems, it doesn’t address another one: where does the energy come from to run all these cars? In their system, the energy input goes into refining the metal, either from ore or from reclaimed metal oxides produced by the cars. Refining metal is a very energy-intensive process, and that energy has to come from somewhere. In favor of their system is that it allows that energy consumption to be very centralized, making it possible to consider things like nuclear power or massive hydroelectric facilities. But however it’s done, it would have to be with power production that doesn’t currently exist — and to make any sense at all, it would have to be power production that didn’t use hydrocarbons. A big challenge there…