"Government wants to control information and control language because that's the way you control thought, and basically that's the game they're in." George Carlin Anthem is a dystopian fiction novella by Ayn Rand, written in 1937 and first published in 1938 in the United Kingdom. The story takes place at an unspecified future date when mankind has entered another Dark Age. Technological advancement is now carefully planned and the concept of individuality has been eliminated. A young man known as Equality 7-2521 rebels by doing secret scientific research. When his activity is discovered, he flees into the wilderness with the girl he loves. Together they plan to establish a new society based on rediscovered individualism. Equality 7-2521, a 21-year-old man writing by candlelight in a tunnel under the earth, tells the story of his life up to that point. He exclusively uses plural pronouns ("we", "our", "they") to refer to himself and others. He was raised like all children in his society, away from his parents in collective homes. He believes he has a "curse" that makes him learn quickly and ask many questions. He excels at the Science of Things and dreams of becoming a Scholar, but when the Council of Vocations assigns his Life Mandate, he is assigned to be a Street Sweeper. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthem_(novella) We have that from Rand back in 1937-1938 and today we have the war on pronouns by the Democrat party. She? Ze? They? What’s In a Gender Pronoun https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/fashion/pronoun-confusion-sexual-fluidity.html That’s what happened here earlier this month anyway, at a downtown Marriott, where members of the 127-year-old American Dialect Society anointed “they,” the singular, gender-neutral pronoun, the 2015 Word of the Year. As in: “They and I went to the store,” where they is used for a person who does not identify as male or female, or they is a filler pronoun in a situation where a person’s gender identity is unknown. “Function words don’t get enough love,” a man argued from the floor. (Function words, I would later learn, are words that have little lexical meaning but serve to connect other words — or “the basic building blocks in language,” according to Ben Zimmer, the event’s M.C.) “We need to accept ‘they,’ and we need to do it now,” shouted another linguist, hidden behind the crowds. Not using transgender pronouns could get you fined https://nypost.com/2016/05/19/city-issues-new-guidelines-on-transgender-pronouns/ Employers and landlords who intentionally and consistently ignore using pronouns such as “ze/hir” to refer to transgender workers and tenants who request them — may be subject to fines as high as $250,000. The Commission on Human Rights’ legal guidelines mandate that anyone who providing jobs or housing must use individuals’ preferred gender pronouns. As the regulations, updated late last year, point out, some transgender individuals prefer to use pronouns other than he/him/his or she/her/hers. Examples of less prominent pronouns that some transgender people may choose, according to the city, are: “ze,” which is the third person singular, such as he and she; and “hir,” which is the third person plural, similar to they.
The left is pushing repressive idiocy like this. Meanwhile "true" conservatives justify social media monopolies banning right wing voices because the are "private companies" and "you can start your own [fill in blank] company" if you don't like it. I wonder who will win out in the end, those who control the language or those with no platform at all?
Air-gen device makes electricity from air moisture 24th February 2020 10:34 am In an advance that could deliver a constant stream of sustainable electricity, scientists have developed Air-gen, a device that uses a natural protein to create electricity from air moisture. Graphic image of a thin film of protein nanowires generating electricity from atmospheric humidity (Image: UMass Amherst) The laboratories of electrical engineer Jun Yao and microbiologist Derek Lovley at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) have created Air-gen with electrically conductive protein nanowires produced by the microbe Geobacter. The Air-gen connects electrodes to the protein nanowires in such a way that electrical current is generated from the water vapor naturally present in the atmosphere. The findings are published in Nature, “We are literally making electricity out of thin air,” Yao said. “The Air-gen generates clean energy 24/7.” The new technology developed in Yao’s lab is said to be non-polluting, renewable, low-cost and can generate power in areas with extremely low humidity. The Air-gen device requires a thin film of protein nanowires less than 10 microns thick, the researchers said. The bottom of the film rests on an electrode, while a smaller electrode that covers only part of the nanowire film sits on top. The film adsorbs water vapour from the atmosphere. A combination of the electrical conductivity and surface chemistry of the protein nanowires, coupled with the fine pores between the nanowires within the film, establishes the conditions that generate an electrical current between the two electrodes. The device produces a sustained voltage of around 0.5 volts across a 7-micrometre-thick film, with a current density of around 17 microamperes per square centimetre. The researchers said that the current generation of Air-gen devices can power small electronics, and they expect to bring the invention to commercial scale soon. Next steps they plan include developing a small Air-gen “patch” that can power electronic wearables such as health and fitness monitors and smart watches, which would eliminate the requirement for traditional batteries. They also hope to develop Air-gens to apply to cell phones to eliminate periodic charging. “The ultimate goal is to make large-scale systems,” Yao said. “For example, the technology might be incorporated into wall paint that could help power your home. Or, we may develop stand-alone air-powered generators that supply electricity off the grid. Once we get to an industrial scale for wire production, I fully expect that we can make large systems that will make a major contribution to sustainable energy production.”