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Comments · 133
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Staking a Claim/ClaimjumpingI work in the mineral industry, and we frequently encounter what is known as "paper staking", whereby the purported claimant just files the paperwork rather than actually physically staking the ground.
It's the source of many lawsuits, and oftentimes claimjumping.
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How about flying underwater?You can get your own personal submarine for only $845,000
Might be handy with the melting ice and all.
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Old NewsAlaska Bugs Sweat Gold Nuggets
"Bacterial biomineralization, as it's known among the experts, has been observed in other places and for other minerals. In fact, bacterial abilities to precipitate metals from solution have been used in some very high-tech contemporary methods of treating polluted water. It's even been appreciated that some bacteria can precipitate gold. Watterson himself had found that the spore coats of another bacterial breed serve as nuclei for luring gold out of solution in broths of gold chloride."
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Prospecting/MiningI search for gold, other metals, and gemstones, as well as fossils and artifacts. I've done quite well at it, in fact. And even though I use modern tools, the basic tools are hundreds of years old: muscle-powered shovel, pick, pan, and sluice. And, of course, the power of observation.
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Re:MegaBeaver"Beavers aren't really eating the trees they gnaw down. They use the logs to construct damms, thereby trapping a number of fish in a given area. They then eat the fish out of their dammed water supply as necessary."
You sound like an Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game biologist. One of them told me, straight-faced, that beavers do not use stones and mud to construct a dam. I know better, because I have watched beavers do just that. But I'm just a geologist.
Beavers eat trees, but they eat the smaller twigs and leaves. Beavers do not eat fish.
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There are other sources"It is extracted from either open-cast pits or by underground mining. Although uranium occurs naturally all over the world, only a small fraction is found in concentrated ores."
Actually, ore is a term that is dependant upon numerous factors, including but not limited to: current economics, access, and mode of occurrence.
For example, radioactive minerals may be found in placer deposits, and can be recovered as a byproduct or coproduct of the primary mineral target (e.g. placer gold). When a mineral is produced as a byproduct of the primary recovery operation, its occurrence by volume need be only a fraction than if it were the primary target of recovery.
As an example, our mines produce uraniothoriante (uranium and thorium mixed) as a byproduct of our placer operations. There have been numerous studies dating to before the 1940's that documented the volume in various deposits contained within our lands. Usually we just throw it back. But if we had a market (a buyer) for it, we would sell it. We also produce halfnium, and many other minerals.
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On a related note: Full Metal Options Boulder Creek Uranium Deposit to Garnet Point
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Glad I'm not a Californian anymoreI'm from Ventura, and am unsure exactly where "Sacromento" is, but I'm glad I moved to Alaska as soon as I turned 18. I could build a house out of aluminum foil ('tin' foil is hard to come by) in my neighborhood, and no one would care, even though the cheapest house just sold for $275,000. Of course, I don't live in Los Anchorage, but I still have DSL, indoor plumbing, and a fire department 6 blocks away.
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Re:ExcellentTo which I would add: Natural gold nuggets, esp. the larger ones, are far more rare than diamonds.
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Re:What's so special about a new moon?It may be a way to fund science.
Think about all the people that 'buy' a name for a star for their loved ones, or purchase a claim for land or minerals rights on the moon, Mars, or elsewhere? Yes, I have read the international conventions stating no one can own this or that, but is naming something a claim to ownership? Alfred Brooks (the late geologist and explorer for the U.S.G.S.), nor his decendants, lay any claim to ownership of the Brooks Range in Arctic Alaska.
I might be inclined to give $100 to have a chunk of rock named after someone or something, especially if I knew the money was going to further scientific research.
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Some of us Alaskans need to eatI live in Bush Alaska, and but for moose, bear, fish, and other animals, I would starve. I don't live in Californicate or Worst Virgina, so I don't know what it is like there. But here, I can't run down to the grocery store for a piece of beef or chicken. I hunt for real, and to live, and leave my computer in the cabin. I also gather wild plant foods. The upside is that I know my food is hormone-and-drug-free.
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Never Underestimate Your OpponentWhen I was 15, and thought I was tough, an old man (must have been at least 40 or 50 years old), whom I beat in a weightlifting contest, said to me words which I will never forget: "My experience will untimately beat you-never underestimate your opponent". This old man took me down with not a single blow of mine landing upon him, and the 'fight' was over in less than three seconds. He was on top, and could have easily killed me.
I carried that lesson through many subsequent battles.
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Re:Outsource to Alaska!Although that may be meant as a joke, it is true in many ways.
I have seen significant changes in the climate in the last 20 years. In the last few years, it has been warm enough to grow corn, melons, peppers, and other stuff, and the shorts and bikinis are already out, even though the lakes are iced over. Having come here from El Paso, I welcome our Global Warming StringTop Wearing Overlords. I smell coconut.
Even the 'winters' are warmer, and the last few have had little snow that stayed, although it did dip to -20 for a few days. That's the view from south-central Alaska.
The downside is the growing pains from being the fastest-growing part of the U.S.
As a geologist, I see that just 9,500 years ago, this place that I have built my home upon (a glacial moraine) was buried by ice that was then over 1,000 feet thick. The climate changes, with or without human influence. Adapt or perish, I say. In the meantime, I'll code when I'm not digging.
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Outsource to Alaska!According to this report, it's not as bad in Alaska: "Nationwide, high-tech employment in 2004 totaled 5.6 million, down by 25,000 jobs in 2003. The only states gaining tech jobs were Alaska, North Dakota and Wyoming.
We have what I would call an emerging tech state. Even way out here in the Bush, we have DSL and wifi, and have had it for quite some time. We also have favorable government, and many other incentives. Heck, we get a check for about $1,000 just for filling out a form, and no state income taxes. Most places don't have a sales tax, either.
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Re:a better joke would be"President Bush to Liberate Alaska"
"US president George W. Bush, in a speech to Congress today said, "Now that the situation in Iraq is under control, and after we've overthrown the governments of North Korea, Cuba, New Zealand, Iran and Madagascar, I'll be asking you for a further $50 billion toward my administration's efforts to help liberate Alaska, and give freedom to the Alaski people."
The Alaskan governor, Frank H. Murkowski has long been a thorn in the side of the federal government by frustrating their plans to grab control of the entire world's oil reserves by the year 2010 to present to Dick Cheney as a birthday gift."
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Re:a better joke would be"President Bush to Liberate Alaska"
"US president George W. Bush, in a speech to Congress today said, "Now that the situation in Iraq is under control, and after we've overthrown the governments of North Korea, Cuba, New Zealand, Iran and Madagascar, I'll be asking you for a further $50 billion toward my administration's efforts to help liberate Alaska, and give freedom to the Alaski people."
The Alaskan governor, Frank H. Murkowski has long been a thorn in the side of the federal government by frustrating their plans to grab control of the entire world's oil reserves by the year 2010 to present to Dick Cheney as a birthday gift."
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President Bush to Liberate AlaskaJust in time for ANWR: "US president George W. Bush, in a speech to Congress today said, "Now that the situation in Iraq is under control, and after we've overthrown the governments of North Korea, Cuba, New Zealand, Iran and Madagascar, I'll be asking you for a further $50 billion toward my administration's efforts to help liberate Alaska, and give freedom to the Alaski people."
The Alaskan governor, Frank H. Murkowski has long been a thorn in the side of the federal government by frustrating their plans to grab control of the entire world's oil reserves by the year 2010 to present to Dick Cheney as a birthday gift." President Bush to Liberate Alaska
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Re:I'd go for Beakman's World, personallyNye had Suzanne Mikawa. I wonder what ever happened to her? I thought she was cute.
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Re:Do we really want to meet aliens?To the best of my knowledge, I've never eaten human, but I have eaten bear. How is this relevant? Because the first time I skinned a black bear, I was suprised. Sans skin, head, and paws, it looks a lot like a human out of Grays Anatomy.
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Re:No!There's also rate my poo, (yuck!) rate my kitty, rate my finger, (hey, that's not a finger!) and more. Why do I have to know this?
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Don't be so sure"In the US, the jury box is still the one place that any common citizen is as powerful as the President of the US.....at least as I understand it."
You really do take your chances in front of a jury, or even a judge. You can make a solid argument, backed by the facts and the law, and still be ruled against. I know, I've seen it happen first hand. There are simply no assurances.
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Re:Low expectations?I believe the primary goal is to determine the composition of the asteroid, not have any expectations to destroy it. From the article: "We must know in detail the internal structure of asteroids, and how they respond to impacts before we can design effective mitigation methods."
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Re:Tritium"Still when you can make it for about $1 using a ruler, some foil, and some scissors you have to wonder why they are even bothering."
Anyone can grow their own tomatoes, or search for gold or gemstones, but how many choose instead to buy tomatoes, gold, or gems? Often tomatoes in the grocery taste like wet cardboard and sell for $3.99/pound, which is why I grow my own when I can. But I also search for gold and gemstone deposits. Some are DIY'ers; most are not.
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Gold and Gemstone VariationsBecause of my involvement with gold and gemstone mining, I get a variation that usually includes selling me gold or gemstones for what amounts to about half the spot price, or less. I've played with a few of the fishes after hooking them, but they play out pretty quickly.
I also get some allegedly involving some equipment that was constructed or set up by someone who was killed (includes a link to the Egypt Air crash), and now I am going to set up an account so we can split the money. Yeah, I'll get right on that.
One thing these scams have in common with so many other (like the classic "Lottery Winner" scam) is that they play on peoples greed. "Wow, I can buy pounds of gold for less than half price? Think of how much I'll make!"
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Linux Gold Corp.?" Linus holds the *trademark* for the word Linux."
Interesting, then, this article about a gold mining company in Alaska named Linux Gold Corp. I wonder. The homepage of Linux Gold Corp. is heavy with the use of "Linux".
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Oil Alternatives"The Earth is using them: they are keeping carbon out of circulation. Burning fossil fuels adds CO2 to the atmosphere. Growing plants remove CO2 from the atmosphere; if the plant is later burned, then the same amount of CO2 is returned to the atmosphere. There is no net loss or gain. That is a good reason to stop extracting fossil fuels. "
Recent studies of forest materials in Alaska and the release of CO2 as a result of naturally-occurring forest fires have shown that a tremendous amount of C is locked up in this material, and released during these fires. This included 'peat' fires, which can burn large areas underground for years. Much of this carbon was locked up long before the dawn of the industrial age. Where did it come from?
As a geologist, I can tell you that there have been times in the history of the Earth when the composition of the atmosphere (and the climate) was very different than it is today. The Earth is dynamic, and the rule is Adapt or Perish.
And here's a company that is exploring oil alternatives: Green Fuel Project, quoted in relevant part: "Alaska's Beluga coal-field about 60 miles southwest of Anchorage, is believed to be the world's largest low sulfur coal-field located on year-round open tidewater with over 2 billion tons of proven reserves, which is ideal for Silverado's commercial scale demonstration plant. The application of Hydrothermal treatment to coal from Alaska's Beluga coal-field has already been demonstrated at a pilot plant scale showing that this coal can be converted into premium, stable liquid fuel with energy levels of over 7,000 Btu/lb on a cost-effective basis."
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Antarctic Jobs"...not to mention the wages that would be demanded by the laborers. How much would you be willing to work for in Antarctica? I doubt it would be a minimum wage."
Actually, you can expect to be paid the same as you would at home. I know, having ran across numerous jobs in Antarctica while helping out people at the Alaska Job Bank. Indeed, many jobs in Antarctica do pay minimum wage. One reason is that there are far more people looking for jobs in Antarctica than there are available positions.
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Alaska Seafood companies need 600 workers immediately for salmon processing jobs
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Re:Darwinian criminal behaviour ...Here's a story about a guy that was breaking into cabins in Alaska, and left his wallet with ID behind.
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Re:Darwinian criminal behaviour ...Here's a story about a guy that was breaking into cabins in Alaska, and left his wallet with ID behind.
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Re:Beer companies will be all over this"world's oldest sea water " (emphasis added). Trust me, you do not want to drink sea water, not much anyway.
Try glacier ice (including icebergs) instead.
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Re:Gold, silver, etc.?
Here are a couple more articles: "Alaska Bugs Sweat Gold Nuggets", and "Domesticating the Gold Bugs, and the Copper Bugs Too" so it's not really new.
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Re:Gold, silver, etc.?
Here are a couple more articles: "Alaska Bugs Sweat Gold Nuggets", and "Domesticating the Gold Bugs, and the Copper Bugs Too" so it's not really new.
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Lightning Season in AlaskaThe heading states "sorry west coast", but Alaska is the farthest west state in the U.S. (also the farthest north, and east), and it most certainly is lightning season here. You can view the ground strikes on a map online.
In my area, (Alaska Range) as well as the Interior and the Brooks Range of Arctic Alaska all have very severe storms; I have witnessed them, and the resulting forest fires, firsthand. I have recorded some fierce storms, with lightning, marble-size hail, strong winds, and once I swear was a tornado (I'm from the midwest originally, and know what a funnel cloud looks like).
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Re:OT: and just out of curiosity...."In the Art of War, Sun Tsu writes: Now the general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat, how much more no calculation at all!"
In the Army, we called that "The Seven P's":
Piss Poor Prior Planning Produces Poor Performance or, Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.
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Navigation"Yeah, and it's pretty amazing/annoying how many sites that do use Flash for navigation don't at least have a plain HTML index or site map page."
Remember back in the old days, when people did HTML by hand? If you used a button or java, you always put a link in case the nav thingy failed, or if people were surfing with images off, since they had a brand new 14.4 modem (I did-a screaming replacement for my 9600).
Now I hear from people, mostly on dialup, (which is still very common), that this site or that site is so slow they never want to go there again. Maybe advertisers should know this, and stop trying to cram crap down peoples throat.
I hate flash, and refuse to use or support it. If I go to a site that has flash only and won't provide an alternate (I never enabled flash in Moz), then I just go away.
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Marching over a bridgeIt was closed temporarily when it was found to sway several feet from side to side under heavy foot traffic due to an unforeseen resonance at around the frequency of human walking.
One time in basic training we were marching along and we came to a bridge, where we were told to stop marching in step. They said it would cause the bridge to collapse. I thought it was BS until I read about this.
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Cheap, clean nuclear power?Here's a start: Alaska Village invited to test cheap, clean nuclear power
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National Petroleum Reserve - Alaska"The Navy has an oil reserve in Alaska. We don't need it yet, and nuclear aircraft carriers and submarines never will." That's not entirely true (it's now the National Petroleum Reserve - Alaska), and ships and subs still require petro products, but that's not the problem.
The problem is not when we might need it (we will), but instead, the long lead times to develop an oil field in Alaska, particularly on the North Slope. It takes 10-15 years, and the exploration and development can only be done during the winter. Even if there was a huge crises and all environmental regulations were suspended due to national emergency, you still simply cannot drive across the tundra when it is thawed. Building a road is not an option.
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Re:Gas, oil & the U.S. militaryI heard yesterday from a guy that works at a coal mine here in Alaska that the military bases here are increasing their consumption of coal, or at least shipments are up, so I am assuming they are using it in their power plants.
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Re:Spam him backFeeds the fax. Tapes the ends together.
Timing is everything.
Best time to start is late on Friday. Check the next day to see if there is an error message. If so, someones going to have a headache on Monday. I used to do this to fax spammers.
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Re:Gold is Where You Find ItIt's true that gold is not uncommon. My grandfather, a rockhound, used to observe that gold is very widely distributed around the world. He'd say: "Where is gold? Gold is where you find it."
That's true, but misleading.
All elements have what we call "crustal abundance". However, that does not mean that you can profitably (key word here) extract aluminum or gold or whatever you're mining for unless natural processes have concentrated the element many times higher than crustal abundance. There is, for example, gold found in the human body. But, like seawater, the relative amounts are so small that there is currently no profitable mining/extraction method.
As for gold, the fact is that gold nuggets are far more rare than diamonds. Most large nuggets mined before 1992 have been melted down. This is part of the reason a gold nugget is worth 2x-3x or more of the spot price for gold. And make no mistake, gold is used as a medium of exchange, perhaps not at your corner fuel station, but certainly between investors, countries, and others. Especially people who don't trust the fake money printed out by governments, which rely soley on the perception of value. Disclaimer: IAAM (I am a miner).
I'd love to see something like this coupled with something like this: Alaska Bugs Sweat Gold Nuggets, since I am thinking that only the smallest particles would be recovered by the corn method.
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Heuristic antivirusI remember years ago some were touting heuristic antivirus as the way of the future. Obviously, it didn't work. The idea was to look for certain patterns rather than the actual virus.
On the plus side, we can hope that if The Machines ever get away from us, we can get Jeff or Data or NEO or Ahhnold to load a virus and save us. On the minus side, one of these days someone is going to write something really nasty, and even those of us who don't use Windows will be affected, either through the drag in traffic, bringing down nodes, or the phone calls and other messages.
It would be great to have a system that looks for changes and reports them...oh wait, I already have that.
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By barge, of course.580 tons is a feather compared to some of the very Borg-looking modules sent to Alaskas North Slope. The 2000 Northstar sealift, one barge, included the three-story, 700-ton permanent living quarters and utility module, a 115-ton tank skid and nine pipe racks of 140 tons each. The 2001 Northstar sealift Northstar sealift included the largest modules ever built in the state and required two barges for the two process modules, compressor module, pump skid and warehouse and shop building. The process modules weighed in at 3,500 tons and 3,700 tons and the compressor module at 3,500 tons. I've heard about even heavier ones. And if you can sail something that big and unweildy from Cook Inlet, around the Aleutians, and to the North Slope, then 580 tons is doable.
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Bacterial biomineralizationFrom a short article: Bacterial biomineralization, as it's known among the experts, has been observed in other places and for other minerals. In fact, bacterial abilities to precipitate metals from solution have been used in some very high-tech contemporary methods of treating polluted water. It's even been appreciated that some bacteria can precipitate gold. Watterson himself had found that the spore coats of another bacterial breed serve as nuclei for luring gold out of solution in broths of gold chloride.
Exactly what happened to cause Alaska's placer-building bugs to build up a gold molecule at a time isn't certain. Grossly oversimplified---and I certainly hope no chemist reads this---the metabolic products exuded by the bacteria interact with compounds in the environment virtually an electron at a time. So to speak, the bugs sweat solid gold. Others think the process may have had another purpose. British chemist Steven Mann speculates that the bacteria could be using "gold complexes...as terminal electron acceptors. If so, then this would be a novel form of energy transduction in anaerobic respiration"---that is, the gold buildup was an important part of the bacteria's life processes, not just a waste product like the crust of salt on an athlete's drying skin. And, here is more on the subject.
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Bacterial biomineralizationFrom a short article: Bacterial biomineralization, as it's known among the experts, has been observed in other places and for other minerals. In fact, bacterial abilities to precipitate metals from solution have been used in some very high-tech contemporary methods of treating polluted water. It's even been appreciated that some bacteria can precipitate gold. Watterson himself had found that the spore coats of another bacterial breed serve as nuclei for luring gold out of solution in broths of gold chloride.
Exactly what happened to cause Alaska's placer-building bugs to build up a gold molecule at a time isn't certain. Grossly oversimplified---and I certainly hope no chemist reads this---the metabolic products exuded by the bacteria interact with compounds in the environment virtually an electron at a time. So to speak, the bugs sweat solid gold. Others think the process may have had another purpose. British chemist Steven Mann speculates that the bacteria could be using "gold complexes...as terminal electron acceptors. If so, then this would be a novel form of energy transduction in anaerobic respiration"---that is, the gold buildup was an important part of the bacteria's life processes, not just a waste product like the crust of salt on an athlete's drying skin. And, here is more on the subject.
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A Bigger Problem: Critical Density.In my thinking, this statement from the article suggests a very serious problem: ""We are on the threshold, if we have not already exceeded it, of reaching a 'critical density' of objects in low Earth orbit, where collisional fragmentation will cause the debris environment to slowly grow even if all other sources are eliminated.""
All our plans for regular space travel, not to mention all kinds of other space uses, will be in jeopardy. Paint chips, bolts, pieces of wire, etc. We need some really smart people thinking about a solution to this.
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Re:Regarding the issue of control...The cable company. No problem there-I don't subscribe. I had cable when I lived in the city, and found something like 120 channels of shit, and rehashed shit. I only watch a few shows each week on broadcast, since I get my news and other information from the net, and my movies on demand are from one of the many rental outlets hereabouts, but I have lived without either for more than a year at a time while working some jobs. One finds other activities.
The phone company. I belong to a member-Owned Cooperative. We all get a check at the end of the year, after the money is plowed back into improving infrastructure. We are all shareholders, and have the same share. And we can vote or raise hell whenever we want. I have excellent phone/FAX/DSL/Cell way out in here in rural Alaska because of it. Sure, I could choose one of the corporate-nonAlaskan-owned services, (assuming they offer DSL) but I'd be stupid to do so. They have proven time and again to be unresponsive to their customers.
The electric company. Same as above, except if I choose, I can generate my own electricity. We've done so at our mine forever.
Microsoft. I use Linux.
Viacom." I think I may have rented one of their videos once.My point is that we have choices. I turned off my cell and dumped cable. Unfortunately for many people, change is too difficult. I have friends who are on all sorts of drugs for 'panic attacks' and other maladies. I can suggest one month that will cure such troubles.
Here is where I start in the rant about how America had such changes in the 1960's, and then came the 70's, and downhill to the 80's (anything made in 1980's except maybe some music in America was crap-especially cars, heavy equipment, and motorcycles), and then the 90's. Now, something like 45% of the 50% eligible to vote actually show up. Why? What happened?
Maybe Tyler Durden was onto something.
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Nudity and SexI'm willing to bet that if advertisers put nudity and sex in their adverts, then no matter what the product, a good percentage of people will watch it. And record it. And watch it again.
Helen: "I'm so apalled, have you seen the latest Alexortus advertisement?"
Nancy: "Yes, simply shocking, watch this part, wait I'll slow-mo it, you can see yis penis!"And they'll replay it til its worn out...and I'll leave it to the readers imagination what transpired in the meantime.
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Re:Cooling Things with Outside Air?Where I used to live, I would agree, but I am now part of a member-owner co-op (yeah, commie), so any profits gets put back in for infrastructure, capital credits, and refunds. Yes, I actually get a check from my member-owner telephone co-op, also (and very cheap, fast DSL!). I urge everyone to shrug off the corporate yoke of energy oppression and form a member-owned co-operative!
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Energy CostsWe aren't talking about just the Northern Tier states of the U.S. but also Canada, Northern Europe, and lots of other places. I know that many villages have very high power rates, due in part to the fact that the entire Village is powered from a diesel generator farm. I currently (no pun intended) enjoy relatively cheap energy rates, but I see the day when I shall either pay for infrastructure, on way or another, to deliver more coal, natural gas, or nuclear power, or cut down. Hey, I lived in a Tipi for a year, and can say from experience that there are sacrifices to be made in choosing that route.
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Cooling Things with Outside Air?I'm curious, why is there no work on cooling things using outside air? Where I live (Alaska) it is generally cool for 8 months of the year. I wonder why we don't have fridges that exchange cool air from outside, and with some polishing, use cool air to cool our computers. In some parts of Alaska, they get -40 (40 degrees below zero) for weeks. Seems like it would be an energy saver. Can anyone correct me or point to some info?
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