Makeup Job Picture

I guess it's more befitting for a makeup artist to show his work than writing about doom and gloom, spouting negative comments on almost everything. Hey, I am actually a very positive person!

All photos published here are copyright of Iman Couture

View the full album here.

Hope Part V: Global Depression: A necessary Evil?

Read the following articles about US economy "bubbles".

Is a USA Economic Collapse Due in 2005

The summarize, the article essentially stated that the US economy (hence world's economy) is facing a depression soon due to high debt, low interest and unemployment.

This should not come as a surprise to students of world's economy. Our economy is built upon debt and projected growth due to the "sustainable growth" nature of our economy. Let me explain.

When a person do a credit card purchase, that person is actually incurring a debt. However, since the merchandise is officially sold to a consumer, to the company, it counts towards revenue, with cash in debt liable to that consumer. Theoratically this is fine since the consumer will one day pay up the debt. However, this create the phenomenon of virtual growth. What that means is that the company actually claim growth based on revenue sold to consumer's debt. When taken into the grand picture of global economy, it creates a vicious cycle: The consumers need to be paid so that they can slowly pay off the debt, company needs to claim growth so that they can pay their employees (aka consumers), which leads to a need to lower interest rate to encourage credit purchase, which deepens the debt. In a very simplistic way, this was what happened to Enron.

In a sense, we are buying the debt of our own future.

On the other hand, the premature economy collapse might be a good thing to human society from a holistic view. Maybe that's the "market correction" so many people believed in to save our asses.

What do I mean by that?

When Peak Oil is fully in effect, there will still be a global depression. The only difference between then and now is human's ability to recover from the depression. If our economy collapse from within itself before the need to exhaust our planet, there is a hope that human will realize certain mistakes of our way, and when global population is sufficiently reduced, the survivors will be able to learn from the mistakes and utilize the resources wisely in the future. Otherwise, if we learn the lesson too late, there won't be any resource left for us human to climb back up again.

In other words, the longer we delay the economy depression, the closer we are to extinction.

Of course, that's a objective conclusion. Personally, I hope they (whoever those nebulous "they" are) can delay the Peak Oil and economy problem for another 100 years so I can enjoy my entire life and live happily into an old-age retirement.

Not that it's likely.

Well, can't fault me for hoping.

Want vs Need

I guess today I would rant a bit about the difference between the Wants and the Needs.

It just occured to me during work today that there is a huge difference between Wants and Needs, especially when it comes to employment status.

To me, there is basically three types of employee relationships with the company.
1. The company needs but doesn't want the employee.
2. The company doesn't need but want the employee.
3. The company need and want the employee.
The fourth type is basically the company neither need nor want the employee, in which case there can be no relationship, theoratically.

It is not hard to see that the worst type of working relationship is the first case, in which the employee will most likely feel the responsibility without the corresponding appreciation.

It is however, difficult to decide which is the better case between the second and third. At first glance, the second type of relationship sounds less burdened, in which both parties cooperate based on mutual wants and respects. However, without the elements of Needs, the relationship can be very fluid and uncertain. Once the element of wants cease to exist, the relationship will easily terminate. On the other hand, the third kind of relationships might be stronger and more long-lasting, but once it degrades to the first kind of relationship, it's a pain to both parties. Ultimately, I feel that it's a personal difference whether one should prefer the second or the third kind of relationship.

In fact, this kind of consideration is common in all kind of relationships, most notably, love affairs. Is is better to based a love affair on mutual DESIRE or mutual NEED?

Which do you prefer?

Hope Part IV: Will Algae save mankind?

Biodiesel from Algae

Excerpt:

The best alternative at present is clearly biodiesel, a fuel that can be used in existing diesel engines with no changes, and is made from vegetable oils or animal fats rather than petroleum.

One of the biggest advantages of biodiesel compared to other alternative transportation fuels is that it can be used in existing diesel engines.

However, with biodiesel, since the same engines can run on conventional petroleum diesel, manufacturers can comfortably produce diesel vehicles before biodiesel is available on a wide scale. As biodiesel production continues to ramp up, it can just go into the same fuel distribution infrastructure, just replacing petroleum diesel.

The main issue that is often contested is whether or not we would be able to grow enough crops to provide the oil for producing the amount of biodiesel that would be required to completely replace petroleum as a transportation fuel.

Some species of algae are ideally suited to biodiesel production due to their high oil content (some as much as 50% oil), and extremely fast growth rates. From the results of the Aquatic Species Program2, algae farms would let us supply enough biodiesel to completely replace petroleum as a transportation fuel in the US (as well as its other main use - home heating oil).

One of the important concerns about wide scale development of biodiesel is if it would displace croplands currently used for food crops. With algae, that concern is completely eliminated, as algae grows ideally in either hot desert climates or off of waste streams.

In the previous section, we found that to replace all transportation fuels in the US, we would need 140.8 billion gallons of biodiesel, or roughly 14 quads. To produce that amount would require a land mass of almost 11,000 square miles. To put that in perspective, consider that the Sonora desert in the southwestern US comprises 120,000 square miles.

We found that at NREL's yield rates, 11,000 square miles (2.82 million hectares) of algae ponds would be needed to replace all petroleum transportation fuels with biodiesel. At the cost of $60,000 per hectare, that would work out to roughly $169 billion, to build the farms.

To make biodiesel, you need not only the vegetable oil, but an alcohol as well (either ethanol or methanol). The alcohol only constitutes about 20-25% of the volume of the biodiesel, so the volume of alcohol needed is only about 1/4 the volume of oil. One of the most land-efficient and energy-efficient way of producing methanol is using pyrolysis on biomass. One of the additional benefits of this method is that the process produces both methanol as well as charcoal, which can be burned for energy production (replacing coal, and producing no net CO2 emissions or sulfate emissions).


Summary:
Mankind's future might be saved by Algae! Maybe we should dedicate Pulau Tekong for Algae production ^^;.