battery man!

The "critically low battery life" alarm is going off. Electrochemical reactions power at least something in your close vicinity right now, and they do it pretty well until they run out of juice. So what do you do? Recharge em! Or slide in new ones.

Let's take recharging on a basic level; you just reverse the reaction by inputting electrons from the power outlet, and you can have an almost new battery. After a few charges, the capacity of the battery reduces since the ions develop "memory" so they don't go back to their original state. I used to have a plug-in rechargeable flashlight; it started getting dimmer and dimmer over a few years until it didn't really work. Then I threw it away and bought another one. Would it have been better if I got a regular one and just switched Alkaline batteries or used separate rechargeable batteries?

I'm going to make a bold claim and say that the Sun is the source of all energy. Sunlight comes in, makes the plants happy, plants make the herbivores happy, herbivores make the carnivores happy, and dead things make the decomposers happy. Everything makes humans happy. We do get oil from dead things, metals from stones made up of... dead things I guess. Dust to dust. All in all, we have one big happy circle of happiness.

In order to get maximum happiness, we should take the shortest, smoothest path to and from the well so as little happiness drips out of our bucket as we skip along. So which is it? Simply make new batteries that are one use? Or make batteries that are multiple use, but require more inputs of happiness to run, before finally becoming so sad no amount of happiness can console them.

And so ends my really random extended metaphor. As well as my battery. 00:03 left!