footlong and fancy-free: why size doesn't matter

Joule's apparatus for measuring the mechanical equivalent of heat energy. A descending weight attached to a string causes a paddle immersed in water to rotate. Caption by Wikipedia, 6 May 2014.

No energy? No matter!

Zero, zip, nada, none: that's how much is left after you turn matter into energy, via a bomb or a power station. But what kind of power station is best? It's actually impossible to say.

I’ve heard that coal-fired power stations are dirty, wind-farms are ugly, and nuclear power stations are dangerous (but much more efficient at producing energy).

Do you agree? I don’t, and I’ll provide the supporting logic in a minute. But first let’s unpack the conventional wisdom and hold it up to the light until it withers and dies!

Power stations are designed to transform matter into energy, or one form of energy into another. If you’ve got nothing better to do, you can use Einstein’s equation, E=MC2, to work out the energy equivalent of the mass1 of any given chunk of matter. The equation says that energy (E) equals mass (M) multiplied by the speed of light (C) squared.

I’ve heard that the reason why you get so much energy via nuclear processes2 is that the speed of light (squared) is such a big number. Really?

The Great Reset

The Great Reset -- Oil on canvas, 62 x 92cm

Two thousand and twenty was a year of great plenty
...of worries and troubles and woe!
This year let’s just hope that we’ll manage to cope
but will we? I really don’t know.

Let’s try and remember at least till December
the lessons that lockdown has taught us.
Lest we forget and remain in huge debt
mourning what money once bought us.

If you worked from your home, with no need to roam
don’t whine about missing the City.
You still had a job, so don’t cry and don’t sob
instead try to learn about Pity.

When you’ve finished your crap, just turn on the tap
don’t sweat if you’ve run out of paper.
Or use some dried grass to wipe off your ass
or a stick as a handy shit-scraper.

If wearing a mask is an onerous task,