Solar power is energy that comes from the Earth’s Sun. When scientists and ecologists speak about harnessing solar energy, they talk about finding technologies that collect solar rays and store that energy, converting it for use in heating homes and energizing the batteries which power everything from cars to flashlights. You might be wondering what “solar rays” are.

What Are Solar Rays?

The Sun produces solar rays through the process of nuclear fusion. The same process which explodes hydrogen bombs also power the vast energies of the stars. Only a tiny fraction of the heat and light put off by the Sun ever hits Earth, but if we could build technologies to harness the solar rays that do reach Earth’s surface, the human race could solve all of our energy needs.

In fact, the Sun already is the source of virtually all of the energy stored on the planet (besides the tiny amount of energy from other stars). This energy is stored in the form of the coal, oil, and natural gas we burn, as well as the calories found in the plants and animals we eat.

The problem is that collecting the energy stored in fossil fuels like coal and petroleum requires whole industries, while the burning of these fossil fuels to release the energy stored creates massive amounts of air and environmental pollution. To be able to catch solar rays and convert it into clean, efficient energy is a much better proposition.

Why Isn’t Solar Power Used More?

So you might be asking why our civilization doesn’t ditch fossil fuels and switch entirely to solar powered technologies. We don’t have the technological advancement yet to harness solar energies as cheaply as we can mine for coal and drill for oil and natural gas. That’s only going to happen when methods of capturing ultraviolet rays and powering our cities and transportation systems get cheaper, or the scarcity of our fossil fuels drive up prices so high that solar power because a feasible alternative.

You might ask why governments and private interests invest so much in perfecting solar power technology, if it’s more expensive than oil. Good investments in technology pay off over time, even if they don’t at first. The materials used to build and implement solar technology is too expensive right now, but working every day scientists and engineers work with those materials is another day closer to finder cheaper ways to produce them. Consider the rapid advances in aviation from the 1920s to the 1940s, as new and better materials–and better designs–came into usage.

Rapid Advances in Technology

As another example, look at the advances the “space race” and the lunar landings yielded. You might say that the space program is or was a waste of time, money, and resources, but exploring that little bit of space we’ve explored created much more rapid advances in satellite technology, telecommunications, and computer science. Every time you log onto your computer, every time you dial up on your cell phone, and every time you watch a sporting event live from the other side of the world, you are benefitting from the advances in technology made from public and private investments in technology.

So eventually, some genius is going to figure out a way to make solar power the cheapest energy science on the planet, and that will revolutionize the world economy, along with how we look (and cope) with a host of other social and geopolitical issues. Harnessing solar power and finding a cheaper, cleaner alternative to fossil fuels might happen tomorrow or next year, or it might be 20 years down the line, but it is going to happen–possibly before our supply of cheap oil runs out.

Solar Power in the Future

Who can say where the future of solar power lies? Science fiction writers have proposed technologies that seem outlandish by our scientific standards, such as the “Dyson sphere”, a technological sphere built around an entire star, so that a sci-fi civilization traps every single bit of light and stellar energy escaping from the star. I imagine our technologists will find less dramatic, more practical solutions to our energy crisis, but you can bet that harnessing “solar power” is going to be at the forefront of our energy solutions in the 21st century.

See also:

1. Solar Garden Lights
2. Solar Yard Lights
3. What Is Green Energy?
4. Are Light Bulbs Bad for the Environment?
5. What Are Windmills and How Do They Work?
6. Earth Day Coloring Pages
7. What Is Earth Day?
   

Google Voice is Google’s telecommunications service for U.S. residents (and U.S. residents only) which allows for PC-to-PC communications anywhere in the world, for PC-to-phone calls within North America (north of the US-Mexico border), and between Google Voice users and those with a Video Chat browser plug-in.

The Google Voice service allows for low-price international phone calls, while domestic phone calls to the contiguous 48 states, Alaska, Hawaii, and Canada are free. Other features offered by Google Voice include voicemail, call screening, unwanted call blocks, call history, voicemail message-to-text “voice transcription”, and conference call support.

How Does Google Voice Work?

To receive incoming calls and activate your Google Voice phone number, you must have a U.S. telephone service. You then can make voice calls over your personal computer using the Google Voice interface, quite similar to what exists on Google’s famous Gmail service. There’s even an option for video service on the PC-only calls, getting the world one step closer to the communicators from science fiction programs like Star Trek.

How Many People Use Google Voice?

Due to an FCC report that was filed by mistake, we learned that Google Voice had 1,400,000 users as of October 2009. That number is likely to have increased significantly in the 15 months since, given that the service had only been on-line for about 6 months at the time. According to the same FCC report, roughly 570,000 of the Google Voice users used their service every day of the week.

How Long Has Google Voice Been Around?

Google Voice began as a service called GrandCentral in 2005. Google bought Grand Central in 2007, but seemed to stop supporting the service, leading to many complaints by old-time users about lack of customer support by Google.

In March 2009, Google relaunched Grand Central and renamed it “Google Voice”. A few months later, in mid-September 2009, Google announced Grand Central’s services were shut down, and asked everyone to move over permanently to Google Voice. Improvements were made and features added to the new service.

Google Voice and Egyptian Protests

The power of a computer-based telecommunications service has been put to the test in the recent Egyptian protests against the government of longtime Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. As the Mubarak government blocked traditional journalistic sources of news, Google and Twitter led a collection of western Internet and social media companies in helping the Egyptian people get their word out to the world.

According to Professor Dina Ibrahim of San Francisco State University, Google Voice has been key: “”It’s very difficult to get a complete picture however, Google Voice and other services have been incredibly helpful in terms of providing alternatives for people to get their message out there,” said Professor Ibrahim.

How Google Voice Affected Egyptian Protests

Hosni Mubarak has been the president of Egypt since 1981, after Egyptian army officers assassinated Anwar al Sadat for signing the 1979 Egyptian-Isreali Peace Treaty. Over the years, Mubarak has adhered to provisions of the treaty and been a strong supporter of the United States in the Middle East, but he’s also been a repressive military figure who has squelched democracy movements in his own country. He also has failed to strengthen the Egyptian economy over his nearly 30 years in office.

With one of the best-educated populations in the Middle East, but with 9 out 10 people under the age of 30 out of work, the Egyptian people took to the streets in protest in early 2011. Western journalists flocked to Egypt to report the story, which embarrassed the Mubarak government. Eventually, the Egyptian government used an old tactic of paying mercenary thugs to attack people in the street, and these “Mubarak partisans” began attacking journalists and reporters with cameras. Within days, this eliminated traditional journalistic broadcasting.

That’s where Google, and especially Google Voice, came in.

Google and Twitter put out word to collect 1,000 Egyptian-English translators to help their service. With these translators and their new telecommunications infrastructure in place, Egyptians were able to take to their computers and get the word out about what’s going on in Cairo and other cities themselves. Western journalists used Google Voice to get the word out.

At present, Hosni Mubarak has announced he won’t run for office again. There’s a sizable chance he’ll have to step down from office in the coming days, weeks, and months, as the story goes on and international pressure mounts to see democratic institutions put in place in Egypt. Whatever happens, the power of Google Voice to get around central government power and military power has been evidenced.

See also:

1. What Is Satellite Radio?
2. What Is a Pedometer?
3. What Is a MMORPG?
4. What Is Nicotine Gum?
5. What Is a Router Table?
6. What Is a Chair Lift?
7. What Is a Joovy Caboose Stroller?
   

These days plenty of people are dealing with unemployment. To wrap our heads around the concept of unemployment we need to define the word itself.

People think the word “unemployment” simply means being out of work. This is not totally true, at least not as far as the government is concerned.

Unemployment applies to people who are currently out of work but are looking for work and having trouble finding it. Usually unemployment is a direct result of being fired or laid off. People who simply have no job and weren’t laid off or fired are not “unemployed” as far as the government is concerned, rather they are “disaffected workers”. Disaffected workers aren’t eligible for unemployment benefits. Remember — unemployment assistance is available for people under certain specific conditions such as layoffs.

What Benefits are Available for Unemployed Workers?

Here in the United States, when a person has a job but gets laid off, they can earn unemployment benefits which are granted to them by the government to help that person “make ends meet” until they can find their next steady income source.

Unemployment Money

The money a person earns during unemployment comes out of a general social security fund. This means that workers who pay into social security are really paying a kind of “unemployment insurance” — don’t feel as though you’re getting a hand out. The money you pay into social security is your “premium” against unemployment.

Unemployment benefits are calculated as a percentage of the money a person earned while they were employed. Obviously, people who earned more money paid more money into social security and can therefore earn more money back during unemployment.

Not all unemployment compensation is financial — there are plenty of other programs set up to extend benefits, like  health care, during unemployment. These benefits and unemployment payments are typically paid out for as much as 26 weeks, though the government has been known to extend that time during recessions or other downturns in the economy. Obviously, once a person finds work again, these unemployment benefits end and they start earning their own cash once again.

Some Facts About Unemployment

It is likely that there will always be a certain percentage of the population unemployed. Even during our greatest financial times in this country there has been a 2-3 percent rate of unemployment.

As of this writing, the unemployment rate announced by the government is around 10.6%. For reference sake, ten years ago the unemployment rate was a measly 4.2%.

Some states, like Texas, have a fairly decent unemployment rate right now — that state is holding at around 8%.  Other states, like Michigan (hit hard by an economic recession and financial misery in the auto market) is average around 16% unemployment, though many critics say that number should be much higher due to under-employment.

Unemployment is a serious problem. Luckily, the government has programs in place to help us through these difficult times.

This is part of a series of blog posts we’re publishing about How Stuff Works. The other posts in this series include:

• How Does E-Mail Work?
• How Does Soap Work?
• How Does Twitter Work?
• How Does Gravity Work?
• How Does Wi-Fi Work?
• How Does the Eye Work?
• How Does Rent-to-Own Work?
• How Does a GPS Work?
• How Does Electricity Work?

A strongly divided Supreme Court voted today to end Federal limits on campaign spending by big corporations. The Court voted 5-4 in favor of ending limits placed on campaign contributions by both big business and worker unions.

Sure, I know the Supreme Court is tilted to the right, but I never thought I’d see a Supreme Court, any Supreme Court, make such a bold decision in opposition to their own past findings.

Remember the McCain-Feingold Law of 2003? Apparently the Supreme Court doesn’t either. That law, also known as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, strictly limited the amount of money that corporations and unions could contribute to political campaigns. The Supreme Court found in 1990 (Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce) that a Michigan law that limits campaign spending funded by corporations should be upheld. For the court to turn around and make a decision in direct opposition to a position not even 20 years old is a disgrace.

So why should you be upset about today’s decision? The conservative wing of the Court determined that these limits were unconstitutional because they violate a corporations right to free speech. I suppose in this context “free speech” means the ability to dump hundreds of millions of dollars into a political candidate’s war chest.

I don’t know about you, but to me “free speech” means the freedom to speak without limitation or censorship. Stuffing Benjamins into a political ally’s hand at a cocktail party doesn’t seem like what the founders of our nation intended when they fought for the First Amendment.

We all know why the right-wing Court found this way. It is politically expedient (even politically necessary) for the GOP to allow corporate money to funnel in their doors as quickly and easily as possible. Big Corporations tend to back right-wing candidates if for no other reason than they want to escape regulation and high taxes.  Allowing unlimited corporate contributions will ensure that we may never see a Democrat in the White House, at least until this foolishness gets cleaned up.

Remember this date — January 21st, 2010. Remember it so you can tell your children where you were when democracy curled up into a ball. Remember that date so you never forget the day that corporations were granted the same civil rights as citizens.

Why has President Obama changed his message on health care reform?

The Honeymoon is over for President Barack Obama — actually, it may have been over for a couple of months now. With most of his approval ratings peaking or starting to drop off, the President and his Cabinet have begun reworking their overall message on health care reform. The big question now is this — can Obama and company win over Americans who already have insurance? Those of us that have little or no insurance coverage are quick to jump on the Obama bandwagon. How can Obama change the minds of those already covered adequately?

Critics of the president’s health care overhaul (and there are plenty) have organized a mass disruption of the President’s town hall meetings. Like it or not, this disruption has had some kind of effect, though the jury’s still out on what exactly that effect is. If you’re like me, you see the disruptions as the last ditch efforts of a dying party to take on a popular President’s major domestic policy — though others see the yelling and anger as a national display of dissidence. Either way, the White House has been forced to go on the defensive. There’s more disruption on the horizon, by the way — President Obama is set to appear on a string on television programs this week according to Robert Gibbs, press secretary. You better believe there will be more “civil” disobedience.

Nationwide polls are starting to show that Americans who have adequate health coverage are very skeptical of the mostly Democratic proposals to expand health care coverage to the millions with inadequate support. Obama’s plan to use town hall meetings in the always contentious state of New Hampshire will highlight how his proposals will affect workers whose employers currently provide their health insurance — a big chunk of the dissident puzzle.

When asked what President Obama would do if confronted by a rabble rouser, Robert Gibbs said “I think what the president will do is turn to that person and probably ask them to be civilized and give them an answer to their question.”

This would probably be the best move for Obama, who already appears to be a man not easily shaken in circumstances such as this. Remember that the town hall tradition is a long one in America — a tradition meant to inform people so they can make a personal decision about an upcoming change in policy. President Obama tends to shine when interacting with the public, and this town hall style meeting will likely be another example of his poise.

At the upcoming town hall in New Hampshire, President Obama will highlight his proposal to protect individuals from questionable insurance company practices. The biggest issue on his agenda is informing people about his program to keep insurance companies from denying individuals health coverage because of pre existing conditions.

Other town hall meetings are in the planning stages across the country. During a town hall in Montana at the end of this week, the President is scheduled to talk about how his plan would block companies from dropping an individual’s coverage when that person becomes ill. In Colorado, next week, the President will talk about the Democrats’ plan to put a stop to the unfairly high cost of coverage in certain areas of the country.

To support the President, the Democratic National Committee purchased air time across the country to run an ad that effectively asks the question “What’s in it for you?” White House officials reported that the ad started running Monday night in Washington and on cable — as of Tuesday the ad is running in states that Obama plans to visit, including New Hampshire and Colorado.

Major concerns over Obama’s proposal are causing heated debate in meetings and on conservative radio shows. The main impact of this dissent is that Obama’s approval numbers have drooped a bit. Is this a true threat to the President’s best known domestic policy idea? We have yet to see. But what we do know is that while Congress is in a month long recess this August, members of the House and Senate are being bombarded with questions from their constituents — people who are worried about the many divisive issues that hit the Congress just before recess. In other words, people are getting involved.

To calm citizen’s fears, Prsident Obama will spend Congress’ recess month stumping for his health overhaul for Americans, concentrating especially on the benefits of his plan for those people already adequately covered by health insurance. By starting in New Hampshire, Obama is making a strong statement. 90 percent of New Hampshire residents report being “adequately covered” by their current insurance plan.

A crowd of nearly 2,000 people is expected for today’s event in the already Democratic leaning state of New Hampshire. Of that crowd, more than half were granted admission based on a random lottery, a tactic Obama has already used to his advantage in other states, but related to less divisive issues. The lottery style admission process may be a danerous move in a state with a history of political activism like New Hampshire.

Outside of the site for the New Hampshire town hall, a handful of political groups will stage a counter rally. The makeup of these groups has been called into question by Obama and company. In fact, an Obama aide sent an email out to Obama supporters in New Hampshire, asking pro Obama groups to counter the protestors, saying that these groups are actually “organized by Washington insiders, insurance companies and well-financed special interests who don’t go a day without spreading lies and stirring up fear.” The White House is not exactly playing a clean game here, either.

What is Proposition 8? What did the California Supreme Court recently decide about Prop 8?

Major news outlets yesterday were all too quick to show footage of protestors blocking a busy intersection in San Francisco – 175 protestors were eventually arrested. The protestors were reacting to the latest decision in the Proposition 8 fiasco. Proposition 8 was an amendment to the California state constitution that read, in part: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.“ Prop 8, as it is popularly known, passed in the November 4, 2008 general election, making gay marriage illegal in the state of California.

There was nearly immediate legal action, challenging the validity of the proposition, arguing that same sex couples who were legally married during the brief period that gay marriage was legal would now find their unions in jeopardy.

California Supreme Court made a major ruling on Tuesday, May 27, upholding Proposition 8′s ban on same sex marriage while leaving legally intact the 18,000 or more unions the state already has sanctioned.

Regardless of legal precedent — the six justices who make up the majority in this case used legal precedent from as far back as the state Constitution of 1849 — Tuesday’s decision was questionable. Essentially, the California Supreme Court’s decision tells Californians that a right as fundamental as the ability to choose the partner of your choice like a “lottery ticket”, in the words of one popular blogger. Gays in California now feel that had they “gotten in early”, they would have been allowed to marry, and that those who arrived “a few days late” lose out on the chance to express their love for their partner.

No matter how you feel about gay marriage, you must admit that a court ruling that both acknowledges past marriages between same sex couples and cuts off the future chance of gay partners to marry is confusing and unjust.

To be fair, the legal clarity of the court’s ruling last year that the state Constitution guaranteed gays and lesbians the right to marry their same sex partners was also questionable. This whole confused state of affairs has been a constitutional mess from the beginning, so why should we be surprised that confusion is still king on the west coast?

The ruling in 2008 that opened the door for thousands of legal gay unions, sponsored by California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald M. George, drew inspiration from the philosopher Michael Walzer, whose outlook can be summed up fairly simply. Walzer believed that “the American concept of moral progress consists not in the creation of new and unique rights but in the extension of those rights recognized as fundamental to those people to whom they’ve been denied.” Its all about fairness. The earlier court decision stood among some famous peers, decisions that had a major impact on the nation as a whole. Think of the decision to allow gay marriage as similar to the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education case – these are cases in which judges sought to equalize outdated law with the social morality of their age

By stark contrast, Tuesday’s confusing and controversial ruling is nothing more than moral retreat and social “retrenchment”. Justice George’s latest majority opinion, asserts that Proposition 8 did not entirely repeal same-sex couples’ right to due process or the “constitutional right of same-sex couples to ‘choose one’s life partner — ” Instead, George wrote, “the measure carves out a narrow and limited exception to these state ‘constitutional rights.’ ”

In fact, the chief Justice insisted that Proposition 8 did not halt “all of the other extremely significant substantive aspects of a same-sex couple’s state constitutional right to establish an officially recognized and protected family”. This statement cements the status of gay and lesbian Californians as second class citizens.

Let’s face it, America – to deny an entire group of people the right to marry is not, as George would have us believe, a “narrow exception” to the equal protection clause. George wants us to believe that it is morally permissible to make exceptions to constitutional rights for specific groups, as long as it’s done by majority vote. Does this sound like the America you know?

Let’s play make believe. Pretend a majority of Californians voted to make a narrow exception to California’s right to privacy which applied only to Jews, — would this be constitutionally acceptable? If African Americans were granted all the protections of the law except the right to marry outside of their race, would that be legal as long as the majority voted for it?

The California Supreme Court tried to make their ruling decent with a caveat to Prop 8 which allows the 18,000 existing same-sex marriages to stand. This is another logically curious decision that will again find California in the middle of more bitter ballot initiative politics. Probably worst of all, the Supreme Court’s decision on Tuesday will add credence to the accusation that all three branches of California’s government are acting outside of the public’s interest.

Proposition 8 passed after an enormous fund raising campaign by certain interest groups that may or may not be aligned with the general opinion of the people of California. We don’t really know how Californians feel about the issues of gay marriage, only that certain political groups were able to raise more money to support a single ballot proposition than any other political interest in the country outside of the Presidential campaigns. Since gay unions were first allowed in California, then banned, and now exist in a state of suspended animation, it is difficult to know exactly how the average Californian feels about the issue. The question that must be asked – is the government of California representing the people, or is it the other way around?

See also:

• How do I Figure Out My Purpose in Life?
• Love Questions and Answers
• Bisexual Cheating
• Social Networking Sites
• Good Dating Ideas