Blackdog:
You make it sound as if ceasing to rely on said resources is an incredibly simple thing we can all do overnight. Like notray said, a lot of Americans have to drive in order to make a living, and often even to buy food. Driving has long been the best price point, much cheaper than living near work in expensive urban areas and much faster than spending hours every day walking to the increasingly distant stores we need to supply us with basic necessities.

The answer to "Why the fuck are you using so much?" is "Because we can't completely restructure the urban and rural landscapes of the united states whenever gas gets pricey." It's taken fifty or sixty years of intense construction and zoning to work ourselves into such a reliance. You think undoing all of that is easy?

I'm not saying it doesn't need to be done, but the only factor strong enough to force it to happen on the necessary scale is gas going up to eight bucks a gallon and staying that way.



and Headthump:
that guy being right about eardrums and moon dust doesn't guarantee he's going to be right about the earth magically producing limitless oil. I'f I'm wrong about that, the earth has still had a couple billion years to build up the meager reserve we've burned through in the past hundred. It'll never be enough to sustain us at even a tiny fraction of the current global rate of consumption. And even if I'm wrong about that is it really the best idea to keep burning it? 

It isn't just one 'guy'. Google the work of Roger Andersen, an oceanographer and executive director of Columbia�s Energy Research Center if you are interested in this subject matter.

There are scarcities, and then there are scarcities. If oil is actually something of a scarcity in kin to air, water and sunlight than a easily quantifiable scarcity like cows milk than the changes in life style and culture proposed by the Conservation movement and others, would be in itself a drastic waste of resources, time, and effort on everyone's part.

There are known quantities of oil that exit in shoal in our good neighbor, Canada to such extent as to dwarf the reserves known to exist in Saudia Arabia. The only problem, at our current technological level it is much more expensive to process it (though probably cheaper than to defend countries like Saudia Arabia and Kuwait from their neighors) than it is to pump liquid crude.

But if that proves unuseable and Gold's theory proves wrong, I am not in any way opposed to the development of cheap hybrid cars. 

Who said I'm complaining about the high prices? I'm attempting to explain to arrogant fuckers who don't understand my country why it's impractical to tell all of us to "just take a bus" and why this is a significant issue for the majority of the population. If you don't care to understand, then please feel free to ride your high horse right up your rectum.

Everyone knows that something needs to be done. Some ideas (fuel efficiency, or alternative sources) are more practical than others (relocating 50% of the population into a city, or pressuring Saudi Arabia into higher production). 

The Federal Oil Reserve isn't for periods when gas prices go up, it's just in case the communists invade. That's why it's called the "strategic oil reserve." Unlikely as that is, using it when oil prices are high is a poor decision anyway. To maintain the reserve we'll just have to fill it again at present day (ie $70/barrel) rates, thus solving nothing.

Clinton and Bush (probably other presidents) have traditionally told this organization to inject spare fuel into the economy during election season (every four years for you non-Americans). This lowers gas prices, and causes more voters to vote them back for a second term. Actually, I found this out because I was hypothetically positing what control the president has over his own reelection, and that was one of the things that I thought of... and it turns out, was true. 

Good old abuse of power. You'll note Dubya has never once touched the reserves, in spite of fuel costs - because guess who benefits from expensive gas?

He's doing it now, of course, to help support gulf refineries whose supply of crude has been cut off now that so many oil rigs have been wrecked - and once more, guess who that directly benefits? :P 

When I'm president, I'm going to release the game development reserves to help boost the economy! 

are you alive? I dont have irc here (yet) (not that i want it!), but I know you go back to uni soon too... where are you and what is up? 

I understand that busses are impractical and sympathize with the high gas prices. We will be only too happy to sell our southern neighbours gasoline (prices adjusted to the global market) while I fill up my motorcycle for 10cnd and live in a province where political debates consists of how many gold houses and rocket cars everyone gets. 

I'm gonna screw the interns and let my wife run the country. 

gonna have to arrange for Mr. Friggles to have an 'accident'... his game sucks anyway! 

RPG, my issue with your posts was that you seemed to regard fuel prices, and not American dependency on fuel, as the problem to be bitched about (and hopefully solved). Since you don't seem to be saying now what I thought you were saying, I retract teh haet and subsitute teh loev.

/me throws flowers and garlands


PS Well said, Lun 

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/magazine/21OIL.html?ex=1282276800&en=4c742b408ca7847a&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

There is still plenty of oil left, no one really disputes that, but the era of cheap oil may be over. All oil production follows a bell curve - when you've extracted half of the oil in an oil field, the 2nd half is progressively more difficult to extract, so you get diminishing returns as the production falls. This is called Hubbert's peak ( http://www.hubbertpeak.com/ ). It is theorized that we are close (10-20 years at most) to hitting the peak of the world's oil production. We are probably seeing the beginning signs now - supply is strained and is falling behind demand - and the gap is being filled with soaring prices, which are never going to come significantly back down. Demand will inevitably continue to grow exponentially, but if the supply is hitting the top of a bell curve, then we really need some drastic replacement, fast. But as oil prices increase, previously infeasible alternative energy replacements will begin to look more and more attractive. Oil will be replaced long before we use it all up.

I think it's going to be a very interesting next couple of years. 

It is theorized that we are close (10-20 years at most) to hitting the peak of the world's oil production. We are probably seeing the beginning signs now - supply is strained and is falling behind demand - and the gap is being filled with soaring prices, which are never going to come significantly back down.

Wouldn't the prices increase AFTER we passed the supply boom?

Regardless, interesting points about the asymptotic nature of oil drilling and production. 

Oil will be replaced long before we use it all up.
You sure about that? Lets not forget that this is a reactionary world, and we won't know we're out of oil until theres none left or such shortages that parts of the world are unable to get any more. If you think we'll all be driving energy efficient/alternative fueled cars well before the oil supply starts to bottom out, I think you are kidding yourself. 

But they're ugly.

Another American issue -- vanity. 

And since demand is what drives up the price, there's nothing to stop oil becoming expensive even before production reaches it's peak. 

I can't tell you the number of times I've walked from point A to point B in my city, (about 100,000) and gotten hassled by people in cars being dickheads. I'm not obese, I'm not missing a limb, and I'll dare say I'm about as average looking as they make lower-middle class white American males, and yet, when I'm out on foot, I usually feel so isolated from the rest of the world, because there is fucking no one else walking, and 300 cars blowing by me a minute.

My city is by no means big geographically; any physically fit person could ideally walk or bike anywhere they needed to go. But the thing is, people like cars. They like feeling invulnerable to the things around them. They like honking, and yelling out the window, and driving 1/24th of a mile to go get some Grilled Salmon flavored ice cream.

It's not a stretch to say that the majority of American cities that have between 30,000 and 100,000 people are too big to navigate by bus, bike, or foot.

Yet in my city of 100,000 people, if you see an adult walking down the street, you think they're homeless, crazy, a rapist or all 3.

We could very easily get by, and generally be a lot better off if people gave up relying on cars for every place they need to go, no matter the distance. But as long as people look at cars as status symbols and mobile suburban fortresses of doom, (tm) that will never happen.

I personally hope that the impending oil and gas crisis will help people to get back to walking, riding bikes, and public transportation. It's nice to see other people out getting fresh air and just conducting their business.

People will be a lot nicer and more considerate when they don't have the luxury of hiding behind fortified steel and 20" tires. I just know it. 

Grahf, really good stuff here; I have long been a skeptic of the Times, given how they allow their paper to be used for political agendas (see the last eight years of Judith Miller's alarmist coverage on Iraqis non existent WMD's), but this article is quite substantial in its arguments and rebuttals and fleshing out the different point of views. It certainly caught my attention that a CFR guy (Simmons, who is profiled in the article) is at the heart of the peakist debate.

Thanks for this heads up. 

CFR guy Council of Foreign Relations -- not implying conspiracy, I know how popular those are around here -- right, Phait;) CFR is pretty open and transparent about its motivations, and they publish a journal Foreign Affairs that outlines there ideology and what the goals they have for anyone who is curious. That they would work towards undermining a Monarchy like the Saudis is not suprising (nor is it necessarily a bad thing). 

yeah read grafh's stuff. For a more alarmist viewpoint, check www.survivingpeakoil.com

Was it Hubbert or Campbell who predicted back then that the US oil production would fall into decline in 1972. And it did.

Indonesia used to be an oil exporter. Now they have to import it, and the government has to inject subsidies to avoid riots.

The north sea oil fields have turned to decline in 2000. Russia and the Caucasus region can still keep up about ten years. Knowledgeable people are just waiting for the big word to drop: when Saudi Arabia's production turns down.

Sadly, or to some people, happily, there aren't any good alternatives to oil. Hydrogen sucks for a multitude of reasons, mainly because it takes a lot of energy to create it and because it's very hard to store.

Oil is still currently practically free energy pouring out of the ground. Some have said that when the price reaches 200$/Barrel, real economic implications will happen.

Might just be that if you want to live, learn to grow cabbage and work with horses. It might just turn out that this period of urban development and science and technology and whatnot was just an odd historical bubble made possible by a certain nonrenewable resource - oil makes life such as if you had 50 slaves in your personal service. From a warm shower in the morning to your clothes, transportation, and food. 

I was on vacation for two weeks... but i'm back now! Still messing around with those texs (you know...).

Your map is r4wk btw! It was fun to see it gradually bit by bit getting better and more polished. I still think you rushed the release a bit, but oh well.

Come to irc and we'll talk, you homosexual! 

/me reads his post from last night again...

Doh, I'm not an economics major, I might have fumbled my arguments a little bit. Ray, the point I think I was trying to make was that if oil becomes extremely expensive, alternative energies that weren't competitive in the past will become so, and the market will naturally transition to the cheapest technology. That's theoretically speaking at least, I worry that it may be too late if we sit around and wait for "the market" to iron things out for us. About "oil prices never coming back down," that will be the case only as long as the present demand for oil keeps up. If some other energy replaces oil's dominance, or we become vastly more efficient at using oil, then yes, the price would drop again. 

[17:00:11] <bambuz> yea
[17:00:26] <bambuz> and of course, probably do a bit harder tricks in the first few maps
[17:00:33] <bambuz> since you can restart if you fuck up

I really hope you don't think that entire-game runs are really done in 1 sitting. Speedrunners do dozens and dozens of runs per map and then merge the best runs together. You even see the runner credits at the end of QDQ and other similar full-blown runs, which runner did which map. 

Recently came across some thread about death metal and I remembered I had the Quake Map Name Generator:

http://www.phait-accompli.com/crap/php/quake_map_generator.php

So here's the Death Metal Band Name Generator:
http://www.phait-accompli.com/crap/php/death_metal_generator.php 

Grahf, nice article.

Blitz, I know what you mean. In a lot of newer areas of Savannah the infrastructure was so dependent on cars they just didn't bother to put in sidewalks at all. It was just malls and apartment complexes connected by six-lane roads. :(

I'm fortunate enough now to live in a city that puts bike lanes on every road it can, and I plan on biking to/from work as often as possible.