Not a Journal

I don't really have a topic for this post. So I'm just going to write a little about whatever pops into my head. I've been faced with a disputative situation here living in an on-campus apartment. And I have to say, the staff I am communicating with is handling this extremely poorly, which is only furthering my cause. Here's my story. About 4 months ago, my apartment was given a noise complaint. First of all, the situation in giving the citation was handled terribly by the residence department representatives, thus leading to us formally appealing the complaint, which is allowed in the rules. After meeting with some staff and discussing my concerns, we appealed the infraction following their procedures. By the time the appeal was sent, exam time was around the corner and after a follow-up by yours truly, we were notified that all appeals would be dealt with after the holiday break. No problem. Shortly after, the first red flag then popped up. Money for the i...

Answer: Not yet. Thanks for reading! Oh... you want more of an explanation? I figured as much. So you're in the market for a new car, or maybe you just want to be part of the change for a better environment? You find yourself at a local car dealer and the salesman is trying to sell you a brand new... Nissan Leaf. You think to yourself, "Why would I want a go-kart like that? It's tiny and barley has any power. I want a car I can have some fun in, drive around longer than 170 km!" (I actually looked that up, you're welcome). Well, hold your horse..power.. get it? I know, horrible joke, why do I even try. Why do people think electric cars aren't great? Is it the range? Tell me when you drive further than 170 km unless you're travelling out of town? Is it power? Tell me when you need a car that has over 150 horse power (answer is never in case you were wondering). Even brand new cars like corollas and civics don't have 150 hp. The ...

In the last post, I talked about what the Sun was. A giant nuclear fusion reactor. And since it is so good at being the Sun, it not only provides heat to our Earth, but also light. Lots of light. Hopefully, this isn't news to you (yikes!). Light is an interesting thing we very much take for granted. Look around, there is light in the room you're in, light coming from the screen you're reading this on (unless you're psycho and still print things..) and light from outside. Even at night! The light from the moon, isn't really light from the moon, but a reflection of light from the Sun. Did I just blow your mind? Probably not.. I guess I'm failing as a writer. There is a lot of light available, and all that light also carries energy, rather, it is energy. In reality, the light from your phone screen doesn't really have the potential to power anything, neither does a light bulb. But think about how many light bulbs it would take to equal the amount of light t...

It's been far too long and that is unfortunate. It's been pretty busy hear at school, learning and such. Oh! You're here now to learn as well? I actually knew that, and you're in luck, because as promised, today's topic is NUCLEAR FUSION. YESSSSSSSSSS. So, you may have been under the influence that nuclear fission (discussed last post) and fusion were one in the same, and well, you'd be, completely wrong. But don't fret, you're here to learn the difference, the benefits, and small complication, that is holding us as humans back from unlimited and clean energy. Nuclear Fusion. You may have inferred that I am pretty hyped to talk about this, and it's great timing because a German team of scientists have just taken one big step to achieving fusion. So first of all, what is it? What's the difference to fission? Well fusion as you may have assumed from the word, gets its massive energy by fusing, or combining to elements (like hydrogen) togethe...

It's a bird, it's a plane, NO, it's a NUKE.......lear power plant? As you may have read, my last mini-series of posts were based on climate change. If you didn't see them, go check them out now! I'll wait... *Waiting...* Great! They were pretty awesome, I know. In this next series of posts, I want to focus on energy. We need to reduce carbon emissions but still need more energy than ever before due to a rapid growing population. So what are our options? A lot of you probably have heard of or already understand how renewable energy works. Great! But I want to go through some of the common technologies for renewable energy, how they work (for the unaware) and discuss their importance on our future, from my point of view. Let's get started! As you may have guessed from the opener, which I may have somewhat borrowed from a famous comic book, the first post of the series is nuclear power. OHH MY GOODNESS NOT NUKES! THOSE ARE DANGEROUS! Well, let's see ...

I'm 1 view away from 2500! That is amazing to me, thank you all so much for even considering reading what goes on in my head. As promised, I want to conclude a small series on climate change with this post. There will definitely be more in the future as the climate change ball is beginning to roll, worldwide. Obama stated quite a bit about it in his state of the union, which I missed the beginning of, but just by him, the most powerful influencer on the planet, saying something about it is a huge step forward. He has said in the past, "We are the first to see the effects of climate change, and we are the last that can do something about it." ... At least I think Obama said that. Either way, it's 100% the truth and I commend him on his actions toward a better future for our Earth. So far I have mentioned that climate change is a big deal, and we're already seeing its effects. I have also talked about what a greenhouse gas is and what their effects are. Here,...

So you're too lazy to do your own research? Or maybe you don't trust the information on wikipedia? (You should, for most cases that is). Well, here comes the Jsaltblog to save you from your looming curiosity. First of all, why do we call the pollution we create "greenhouse gases"? Well, let's look at what pollution we are talking about specifically. I'll focus on the major one in this post, carbon dioxide. So what is carbon dioxide? Well, if you take a deep breath in, and feel the air enter your lungs, carbon dioxide is what you're breathing out! But this isn't the only source of CO2 (that's how I'll be denoting carbon dioxide, and I'll explain why in a few seconds). CO2 is also produced in combustion, like when you have a bonfire! Combustion is basically just taking something that burns, interacting it with oxygen (which is in the air) and then producing steam (which is just water in gas form) and CO2. Yeah, that's the "expl...