Metal Organic Frameworks

Jake Correll, an old friend of mine who happens to be indolently brilliant, told me of pod casts to NPR available for free on iTunes. I got on board this afternoon, and listened to one from Science in Action, 17 April 08.

There was a lot of blather about gravity and not weighing the same in different locations of the globe. But hidden neatly away at about 20 minutes, was a piece on the works of Professor Omar Yagi and his research team on something called metal organic frameworks, or MOFs. All dry jokes aside, it was an interesting piece, detailing the capability of the team to produce crystals (the MOFs) that would store the equivalent of 40 tennis courts of gas per gram of crystal. The team had successfully done this with methane and carbon dioxide, and were working on the process for hydrogen (for use in hydrogen cell cars). Quite frankly, they seem hell-bent on getting to the hydrogen application, but I haven't heard much of their use to start filtering carbon out of the atmosphere to stop or at least mitigate global warming. I guess the financial gain available for getting to that hydrogen car exceeds the need to filter power plants and vehicles?

However, one point that disturbed me was simply, what happens when you've filled the crystals with the carbon? I mean, the crystal doesn't take the carbon, produce a chemical reaction, and voila: oxygen (I don't think that's possible without some manner of alchemy, but then, I'm not a chemist). Instead, it stores it. That is the very nature of what got us here to begin with: out of sight, out of mind. Think about the 80's and the repeated incidents of corporations dumping their toxic waste into the ocean. Okay, we stopped that, but did you ever ask, where is it now? Radioactive Isotopes with a half life of 10,000 years sitting only God knows where. These crystals have the potential to become those barrels full of radioactive sludge. We remove the carbon from the air, but where will we store the crystals? What will happen as the crystals decay? Why do we, as humans, have to look further than natural law to find the solution to such a simple problem?

The complexity of the global warming problem is not in the solution; it's in the inability of us to forego our comfort level for the sake of our environment or, our profit in the case of the oil companies.

Leadership 1

The first principle of military leadership is this: "Nice guys get people killed." I have watched leaders in the infantry for 11 years and the ones that try to be civil are the ones whose organizations are filled with stupidity. Soldiers are humans, and as such, they will inherently seek the path of least resistance, which means that if there are no repercussions for stupidity (okay, call it their individual desires), then that is the path of least resistance. But if they get a coscaron (hit on the head) for frivolous actions, then they perform as expected. General Patton said it best, your men should be more afraid of you than of the enemy.

I remember, as a team leader, my guys hating me. I remember scuffing them up on a regular basis. I remember, going through the barracks every morning, waking them up, coming back through 15 minutes later, and inspecting their rooms. I don't ever remember sitting in Joe's room, playing video games. I don't remember a time when my Joes considered me their friend. I do remember that they never got where I wanted them to be, but sometimes coming pretty darn close.

Team leaders eager to get home so they can drink beer or watch TV are going to be poor team leaders. One trait that defined my career was being the last one out the door. And there wasn't a lot of sitting around time, in my youth. I remember this one Soldier, though his name escapes me, who commented that he liked SSG Shaw's squad because they were so knowledgeable. They would sit around and read the CTT manual, then practice. I started doing the same.

In my opinion, if you show weakness as a leader, you leave room for your men to challenge you. Train in the rain, in the snow. Enjoy it; relish it. Take your guys on 10 mile runs because you can. Put them in their MOPP suits and road march them, making sure you take the time for water and skin and pupil checks. Push them to their limits because I assure you, no one really knows what their potential is until they reach it. And every time you think they've gone as far as they can, you - and they - will be surprised when they go even further.