Dear Conservatives, Elon Musk is Not Your Friend: He is a climate change radical who partners with the government at every turn to enrich himself

American Thinker ^ | 12/28/2021 | Bode Lang

[MV=PY]

Thanks for your responses.

I was one of those early “hobbyists” with an Altair, thought it was just cool. I’ve been in product development, mostly sw, ever since. Went to all the early MS developer conferences, met Bill Gates in those days (just to shake hands after he spoke).

I know Gates is deeply competitive in all aspects of life, but I was unaware that his Mom’s relationships helped connect him with IBM.

Appreciate the info.

[kosciusko51]

They said the same thing about petroleum reserves in the 70’s and 80’s.

[SmokingJoe]

inevitably, fossil fuels are eventually going to run out. The only debate has been how long it’s going to take.

[dfwgator]

And what about all of those minerals necessary to make the batteries for EVs, they’ll probably run out before fossil fuels do.

[kosciusko51]

And the same is true for the materials needed to make car batteries, solar cells, and windmills.

Not to mention how those industries are dependent on petroleum and petroleum-based products.

[SmokingJoe]

Not sure about that.
Plus they are already working on alternatives.

[fireman15]

I was one of those early “hobbyists” with an Altair, thought it was just cool.

That is amazing! I never had an Altair, but was first introduced to digital technology in 1970. I was far ahead of my classmates by most measures and one of my teachers gave me a digital electronics science fair type kit to help keep me from being bored and causing trouble.

A few years after the Altair was introduced when “home computers” became affordable you would find me keying in programs from books and magazines or coming up with my own and saving them on cassette tape. Later of course, I put together a bunch IBM XT and AT clones from parts for myself, family and friends. I eventually got tired of doing this around the time Pentium chips were first released because of how much time it took to help people with computers that I had assembled.

I have been a prolific junk collector over the years so despite selling a lot of items, I still have a great deal of old computers and accessories. I still love going to archive.org, downloading and running ancient programs in emulators and on the real thing. A lot of my old machines no longer function correctly or at all, as the capacitors tend to dry up after decades of sitting. I have been planning on buying a new soldering station to make replacing them a little easier.

https://archive.org/details/software

My “meeting” Paul Allen and Steve Ballmer were both in social situations and had nothing to do with computers. My wife was sort of a local celebrity in certain circles, so we came into contact with many politicians, business-people, and celebrities over the years. This is mostly meaningless but does alter one's perspective a bit.

[SmokingJoe]

We are going to be using fossil fuels for all kinds of products (including pharmaceuticals fertilizers etc) for a very long time. But then when automobiles vastly reduce consumption, the fossil fuels will last longer.

[fireman15]

The United States has the most known recoverable coal reserves of any country in the world an estimated 252 billion short tons remaining. The nearest contender, Russia has just 162 billion tonnes. The United States currently uses 731 million short tons a year of coal a year, and this has been going down in recent years, but at current usage we currently have enough known recoverable domestic reserves of coal to last 345 years. Domestic reserves of coal will likely outlast domestic reserves of oil and gas by hundreds of years. A hundred years from now if our country is still alive and kicking and if nuclear power is still some kind of pariah coal may become much more important for transportation. And electric vehicles will likely be at the top of the food chain. In the near term given issues with infrastructure, limited resources for efficient batteries, dodgy "renewable energy" sources and a host of other challenges probably not so much.

I grew up on acreage with horses and always admired the really large ones. So the romantic within me still loves the Jethro Tull song and album, Heavy Horses. But of course horses will likely not ever be a viable source power again.

Iron-clad feather-feet pounding the dust
An October's day, towards evening
Sweat embossed veins standing proud to the plough
Salt on a deep chest seasoning
Last of the line at an honest day's toil
Turning the deep sod under
Flint at the fetlock, chasing the bone
Flies at the nostrils plunder.

The Suffolk, the Clydesdale, the Percheron vie
With the Shire on his feathers floating
Hauling soft timber into the dusk
To bed on a warm straw coating.

Heavy Horses, move the land under me
Behind the plough gliding -— slipping and sliding free
Now you're down to the few
And there's no work to do
The tractor's on it's way.

Let me find you a filly for your proud stallion seed
To keep the old line going.
And we'll stand you abreast at the back of the wood
Behind the young trees growing
To hide you from eyes that mock at your girth,
And your eighteen hands at the shoulder
And one day when the oil barons have all dripped dry
And the nights are seen to draw colder
They'll beg for your strength, your gentle power
Your noble grace and your bearing
And you'll strain once again to the sound of the gulls
In the wake of the deep plough, sharing.

Standing like tanks on the brow of the hill
Up into the cold wind facing
In stiff battle harness, chained to the world
Against the low sun racing
Bring me a wheel of oaken wood
A rein of polished leather
A Heavy Horse and a tumbling sky
Brewing heavy weather.

Bring a song for the evening
Clean brass to flash the dawn
Across these acres glistening
Like dew on a carpet lawn
In these dark towns folk lie sleeping
As the heavy horses thunder by
To wake the dying city
With the living horseman's cry
At once the old hands quicken -—
Bring pick and wisp and curry comb -—
Thrill to the sound of all
The heavy horses coming home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC0sYZLqu_o