bad juju

tl9

2010-10-05T13:13:00.002-04:00

Like most of the twitterverse, been a loooong time since my last post on this big macro-bloggy thing. What? I can use more than 140 characters? I can barely think that long anymore.

While I'm at it, gonna replace the old tagline, which has been hanging there since Henry Rollins told it to a bunch of soldiers during a USO Tour, circa 2008-ish:

"Your commander would never lie to you. That's the vice president's job."

ruin porn

2010-10-05T13:02:00.000-04:00

A coworker sent a link to a Detroit Free Press slideshow of Detroit's crumbling ex-treasures. He knew that his small audience would be interested; we're the ones who discuss Detroit's history more than its sports and solve the world's problems during coffee breaks. But as much as I've been fascinated by well taken pix in the middle of our ruins, they're growing tedious. Hipsters, TEDxDetroiters, and 'Detroit Soul' t-shirt wearers call these shots and the breathlessly concerned, belated text they're usually accompanied by 'ruin porn.' Fascinating and riveting, sometimes beautiful, but essentially cliche.

Something I never see amongst all the sentimentality about how some building was where generations of Detroiters went to get their family watches fixed, or what great bands played at certain now-crumbling venues is the point that this didn't happen in a vaccum, and it wasn't just the city's fault. In this area it's always a 'they' type of accusation and never a 'we' acceptance of responsibility. The sentimentality of ruin porn amongst suburbanites who stopped using the city as they shifted to shopping malls and strip mall theaters is a misplaced symptom of the throwaway society that was fostered at the same time. It didn't start with plastic bags; it started with entire cities.

Some of the fascination is genuine and more or less blameless. Often removed by only one generation from a home in Detroit, this really is some suburbanites' first view of what was. The city, they were told and believed, was not somewhere worthwhile anymore, and everything new was inherently better. It's nice that more eyes are opening to Detroit's past and future, but can we move past this ironic rehashing of our fixation with ruins that our own apathy and inability to tackle the problem caused? Don’t get me wrong, there were a LOT of Big Problems that got us here; even if everyone had pitched in, not sprawled out, and done the heavy lifting to keep this city vibrant, there would still be spectacular ruins like the Packard Plant. That said, the tone conveyed by people I grew up around and articles that I read is normally, 'Wow, would you look what happened here,' as if we just stumbled upon this mess for the first time, archaeologists and not direct participants.

I don't mean to second guess the combined result of a lot of individual decisions; I just wish we could stop pointing at the carcass as if we had nothing to do with it, wipe away the crocodile tears, and get busy living in a city we're actually proud of.

Nokta

2010-04-23T18:58:00.000-04:00

It means 'dot' in Turkish, but is unlike any dot I've ever seen.

Nokta . from Onur Senturk on Vimeo.

Thanks to Open Culture for sharing this.

Gerald McBoing-Boing

2010-02-16T12:35:00.002-05:00

A 1950s cartoon of a little boy that speaks only in sound effects, adapted from a story by Dr. Seuss. More here at wikipedia.

Plus, I just learned you can do screenshots like the below while showing video - very cool.

lunchtime doodling (originally drafted July 14, 2009)

2010-02-06T15:16:00.003-05:00

A coworker and I were using Wordle, which generates word clouds based on text or page addresses you give it. During lunch I tried a couple more things with it and then looked for phrases, appropriate or not, based on location clusters of words in the first inauguration speeches of 43 and 44. I listed them below, but there are many more.

o
done lines

force feed cooperation
just met
work today
big government
every small crisis
work now
make peace
economy challenges
americans fear power
god country
question every freedom

w

allow poverty

trust power
abuse government
simple american
children (abandonment) promise
public god
defend problems
good economy pledge
angel interests
follow now
ideals achieved
generations make america
responsibility challenge
cause beyond ambitions

Galactic

2010-02-06T15:06:00.000-05:00

Heard these guys in an NPR interview this morning. Fantastic, eclectic, and a mix of New Orleans old and very, very new.

rest in peace dad

2010-01-17T21:42:00.004-05:00

This is the eulogy I gave for my dad, who died December 22nd. I practiced saying it out loud at least half a dozen times, but that didn't help me avoid crying anyway when I had to do it for real.

This has been started and rewritten a dozen different ways in the past week. I had a couple of starts that sounded great in my head but flopped once they hit paper, so in deference to simplicity I’m going to keep it short. I also cut out my lame attempts at jokes, which involved Ronald Reagan, dressing as a cheerleader for Halloween, and a sailor’s creative vocabulary.

I’ve thought for a long time that we should have funerals before the person in question dies; I think it would be very nice to see all of our loved ones together and hear a lot of nice things being said about us. Talking to so many of you today and sharing stories about my dad, I know that he would have deeply appreciated being here amongst you.

Chuck Harvey valued self-reliance, his family, rationality, craftsmanship, education no matter where one got it, and the dignity afforded everyone by the values of our country. He led by example, expecting others to fall in line and take up some slack just as he would in their shoes. He didn’t like to be out in front of people, and he could just barely tolerate formal situations, but I never saw him shirk responsibility or manners to avoid those things. He normally considered what he thought before he opened his mouth. He was caring, forgiving, and deeply passionate. Though he drilled into me the value of humility, he was one of my biggest cheerleaders; he always told me I could do something, even if he sometimes secretly thought that I probably couldn’t. He was a tolerable sailor and a not overly impressive surfer, but he was also a faithful and loving son, a steadfast husband, a loving dad, and an intelligent and decent man, and every one of us who knew him is better for it.

In memory of him, I hope each of us can remind ourselves to ride a motorcycle a little too fast, read some Steinbeck, take a lot of pictures, listen to music too loud—opera or The Doors, doesn’t matter—be decent even to people that we know won’t return the favor, stay curious, argue like hell for what we believe in but be smart enough to realize when we’re wrong, and set everything aside for family.

Not quite as much change as I was looking forward to

2009-12-09T21:17:00.000-05:00

Particularly lame headlines all on Yahoo! tonight:
# Obama, other Dems praise new health compromise (AP)
# House votes to extend $31B in expiring tax breaks (AP)
# SC lawmakers nix Sanford impeachment, back rebuke (AP)

Square

2009-12-07T23:36:00.000-05:00

Just finished an article in Technology Review throughout which I was waiting for the a-ha moment that illustrated what I'd missed with my initially-excited reaction to the news that Jack Dorsey's Square was aiming to empower individuals with the ability to transact without cash, but it didn't happen. Instead, one critic focused on the hardware and the other came straight out of a Business 101 course questioning demand:

Mark Beccue, a senior analyst at Abi Research who studies consumer mobile technology, also has reservations. "What puzzles me is, what market we are addressing here?" he says. "I saw a video of using [Square] in a coffee shop and thought, 'Don't they have a cash register?' " Beccue concedes that the product may work for certain niches, such as markets or art fairs, but he doesn't think it has mainstream appeal. He suggests that most small businesses will prefer traditional point-of-sale systems for managing credit cards, and that ATMs are convenient enough that individuals aren't likely to turn to Square to pay each other.

I'm guessing Mr. Beccue has never started his own company, because the absolute most galling part of the process was not learning how much of revenue would have to be set aside for taxes, it was applying for a merchant account, paying for the privilege, and then jumping through hoops so the parasitic bank would allow me to continue paying them an inflated fee with every transaction. There's a huge market for Square if it takes the banks out of credit/debit transactions and not only levels the field for merchants (which will be largely dependent on its pricing structure), but also empowers individuals in ways that ATM's with two and three dollar service charges just don't.

Getting back to the 'don't they have a cash register' issue, the Square site mentions different hardware configurations, but the underlying challenge isn't the hardware, as Mr. Paisner suggests; it's rebuilding a trusted cashless transaction infrastructure from the ground up. Once Square does this, they'll be able to leverage their reputation and business model to nearly any piece of technology, handheld or not, plugged into an audio jack, or inherent in every phone. Both critics ignore whether Square will be able to do the wet side of the job and vastly underestimate the portability of the service if it can.

fotD 37

2009-11-18T20:43:00.003-05:00

Empire State Airship Mooring, originally uploaded by lazzo51 (FWIW, this is the only photoshopped picture I've ever thought of posting - read the caption on flickr to see why).

getting wood

2009-11-01T08:01:00.002-05:00

NOS Antique Bicycle Wood on ebay wooden Handlebars Stem 1880s, originally uploaded by Ciclo Di Cuoio /Cycle Leather+Vintage Pro Bicycles.

This is beautiful.

Does green building demand complexity?

2009-10-28T12:14:00.005-04:00

Just read the Oct. 2009 Buildings article about New York City's One Byrant Park, a recently-completed skyscraper that has become the first office tower in the world to achieve LEED Platinum. Green features which are growing common in smaller buildings but are mostly unheard of on this scale (2M sq ft) include:

it's mostly constructed of recycled and recyclabe materials
insulating glass allows max daylight while reducing heat transfer
a low-emission cogeneration plant complements power
a grey water recycling system designed to save millions of gallons per year
planted roofs, etc.

It's pointed out in the article that "Besides being the most environmentally advanced skyscraper in the world, it's also one of the most comlex." While some of the reasons for that complexity include things like being located at one of the world's busiest intersections and enveloping a 1,055-seat Broadway theater with an historical facade, much of the complexity comes from the systems necessary for its planned high performance.

I think that as we move forward with sustainable building, we'll be treading each side of the complexity issue; smaller new and renovated buildings will be very simple as inefficient systems are done away with in favor of using the building's immediate environment for conditioning, circulation, etc., but big buildings will tend toward increasing complexity, as they try to meet very different goals on a much larger scale, and various harvesting techniques will become more feasible when done in larger amounts.

Opportunity rests in both increasing simplicity and complexity; the trick is understanding where. That understanding, though, is only going to grow more complex.

fotD36

2009-10-08T12:47:00.002-04:00

Yoga above the clouds, originally uploaded by carl kalabaw.

bike racks vs. skip stops

2009-10-07T07:49:00.004-04:00

The federal government’s landlord, the General Services Administration (GSA), was surprised in 2007 upon completion of the super-green San Francisco Federal Building when it was told by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) that the building didn’t qualify for a LEED rating. It had specifically been built to raise the sustainable bar, and GSA took it as a snub that LEED hadn’t been conferred. Architect Thom Mayne of LA’s Morphosis, didn’t seem as concerned; maybe-well-earned confidence buoyed him as he pointed out the problems with LEED that prevented it from recognizing the building’s achievements.

Most agreed that a LEED rating, which awards points based on a spectrum of measures integrated into the construction and intended operation of a building (but not so much the actual operation), wasn’t up to the task because the federal building was too advanced, incorporating features not yet addressed by LEED. Evidently the USGBC eventually agreed, as it just granted a silver rating to the building. Still, even though GSA and USGBC are praising the achievement, a silver rating seems to fall short for a building that so clearly exemplifies much of what the USGBC promotes. And Mayne? I haven't found any comment; he's busy following up on the performance of his SanFran building (I hope he reads this Epoch Times article) and designing newly astonishing ones in some of the world's other important cities.

A side view of the new Federal Building in San Francisco.

(Ivan Velinov/The Epoch Times)

Persistence

2009-10-02T09:01:00.002-04:00

Sometimes things that have been forgotten or purposely shelved emerge, whether from the slime or some shining glory, into our current events that are tied inextricably to other things about which we only have tangential awareness, and it’s like a firecracker going off when the connections are made. For most of my life I’ve been aware of the names Manson, Tate, and Polanski, and I’ve known that various levels of sadness surrounded those names, but until this morning had no idea the first two were tied in any way to the third.

But then I was reading the comments in a favorite blog this morning and they tied together awful events that unfolded just before I could have been aware of them, which had ensured that I would only ever hear about them as snippets bubbled up through popular culture, ferried but never explained by those who actually remembered them as events rather than micro-history. It turns out that Manson and his followers killed Sharon Tate (which I knew), an actress married to Roman Polanski, a director* (which I didn’t know). She was eight and a half months pregnant (which I thankfully hadn’t known). Eight years later, the widower drugged and raped a 13-year-old (If really pushed I might remember that Polanski was a rapist, but probably not. I’m sure I heard that association at one time or another, probably diffused through the euphimisms used to soft-peddle his crime, but I doubt I really stored it away in memory. ) and skipped town.

All these sad and awful and tawdry facts settled onto the floor like dust, the connections quickly swept into corners by our lives. Sometimes it’s good to forget about things, but forgetting doesn’t truly insulate us because at any moment they can float back into reality, dragging their forgotten connections behind them like spider silk. It’s like karma, which I do and don’t believe in, making itself obvious in our lives, reminding us with clear facts that everything we ever do has a result, and will persist, in one way or another, and we normally have the choice whether that persistence is positive or negative.

* Yes, I intended to say a director as if he’s just one of many, as if he was a truck driver, because in spite of his talents at movie making, he is just one of many. It’s just a job, and neither his talent nor his name give him any special insight into anything other than movie-making, and they certainly shouldn’t offer him any special consideration (which they’ve seemed to for 30 years), and that is important to remember when he is judged as a fugitive, pedophile, and rapist in the coming weeks.

TV, R.I.P

2009-09-24T21:01:00.003-04:00

It happened to newspapers and journalism first; T.V. as we've known it is not far behind. I have almost no reason to watch it anymore.

Intelligent Video: The Top Cultural & Educational Video Sites

Movies 101: Where can I legally see movies for free online?

I feel a little dizzy at the possibilities...

fotD 35

2009-09-05T13:44:00.006-04:00

STS128-S-038 by NASA: 2Explore on flickr

It's easy to forget, after 128 missions, how cool this really is.

Jefferson vs. Hamilton: the debate persists

2009-08-24T11:21:00.003-04:00

Had a serendipitous surprise on my morning commute today. I’m listening to the audiobook of The American Future, in which Simon Schama makes the point that yes, rebuilding societies after we’ve bombed them into submission actually IS the mission of the Army. Universally-admired Generals like Eisenhower and Marshall didn’t flinch at the idea, and they probably would’ve squinted and looked at you like you were an ugly, rude little thing if you’d suggested otherwise. These were men that knew how to get things running, as Simon says, ‘to build democracy.’ They were cut from the grey cloth of the West Point that founder Thomas Jefferson envisioned (I hadn’t known that little bit either; is there anything Jefferson didn’t do?), a place that would teach its students not just to efficiently and scientifically conduct war, but more importantly to wield those same skills to build the infrastructure and foundations of the new country.

The serendipitous part was that I was about a mile as the crow flies from Detroit’s Fort Wayne when it was mentioned in the book as an example of the sturdy work of Montgomery Meigs, one of the first and best examples of the Jeffersonian West Point engineers. If I hadn’t been running late, I would’ve sat in the parking structure to hear more about his years here, building a fort and barracks which still stand after almost 200 years. Meigs has captured my attention in the book, not least for his ‘establishment’ of Arlington National Cemetery, done out of spite toward his old commander, friend, and fellow early West Point grad Robert E. Lee. When he heard of what he believed was the odious betrayal of Lee accepting the position of General of the Army of Northern Virginia, Meigs suggested using the family mansion of Lee’s wife as a burial ground for the Union dead. The first men (soon to include Meigs’ son) were buried next to Mrs. Lee’s beloved rose bushes; ‘If they ever spend another night there,’ Meigs fumed, ‘they’ll sleep with the ghosts.’ It doesn’t get any more American Gothic.

But that’s a digression from saying that, yes, the military does need to be in the business of rebuilding that which we tear down. As I was listening to Schama, I remembered some of my own experiences with my fellow enlistees and this funny and smart TED Talk by Thomas Barnett, who proposes a new way of dealing with this problem: split the military into two wings, one for tearing down, the other for building up. Given the complexity of the overlapping missions of the military, I believe Jefferson would have been fine with it. Definitely give it a listen.

Side note: If you're a political history nerd, Schama also outlines the debate between Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton regarding the mission of the Army as well as the function of government. Its applicability to the current tropes of both parties (but especially modern conservatism) is profound.

#csfri

2009-08-14T08:43:00.002-04:00

Let’s Celebrate Science Fridays.

I’m thinking we should borrow a little bit of each Twitter Friday to celebrate all the good in science and rationality. Nothing against Follow Fridays, but there’s room for another meme, or tweme, or whatever you want to call them, and what better one than humanity’s greatest accomplishment, the one subject that can unequivocally be identified as giving us a rational framework for understanding the world in which we live?

As for the day, why not Fridays and why not now? NPR has Science Friday, Australia’s National Science Week starts tomorrow, and we in the U.S. are being actively encouraged to devolve into shouting matches rather than rational discussions using facts on critical issues (which unfortunately isn't anything very new). Seems like a good day and time to me.

Let’s celebrate the big discoveries, the anonymous toilers, the ideas, and the underlying tenets of science every day, but on Fridays let's make it clear how much we're already tweeting about it.

#csfri

fotD34 + 1 video

2009-08-02T22:43:00.003-04:00

The Up balloon over Disneyland Paris, by BaaBeE9

They just set a record 329 balloons launched at one time in France, and in the video below the balloon above was visible. Disney is using it to launch the movie Up in Europe.

The Aquatic Ape

2009-08-01T08:42:00.002-04:00

I was happy to see one of TED's new videos was Elaine Morgan discussing the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis this morning (I often watch the laptop to get me through putting away dishes). I stumbled across her book The Aquatic Ape years ago in the library, was so amazed I read it a few times, and wondered why in the world we hadn't heard more about this. At one point I tried to find it to buy, but it was out of print. Flash forward a decade and a half or so and here she is by video explaining why she thinks we don't hear more about it, and the book is available at Amazon.

Watch the video, though. I'm no evolutionary biologist, but I know a bit about it and it seems to be a very compelling argument, even if for nothing more than to synthesize our understanding, to add a branch to the whole story, fleshing it out.

saving energy so you can use it somewhere else

2009-07-31T08:28:00.006-04:00

I'm a little skeptical every time I see something like this from someone like them, but it's a cool widget anyway. However, they missed a number of my favorite energy intensive pastimes that they may want to consider adding:

Shooting rats at the dump
Peelin' out to impress the ladies
Burning tires
Chasing rabbits in the field with my jeep
Whaling
Burning coal for heat while reading Charles Dickens to my filthy children (I'm a fool for accurate reenactment)
Cruizin' and drinkin' fo-tees

a funny exchange

2009-07-30T08:42:00.003-04:00

In the random execution of my job, I came across something this morning that I wanted to clarify, so I emailed Doug, who knows some experts:

Git your guns, I need some lawyerin'!
Would you kindly guide your and your various lawyers' eyes to the below and tell me if it means what I think it means, that it's OK to carry a shotgun into a federal facility if you're legally hunting? The public (not to mention Dick Cheney) needs to know!!
From 18 USC 930:
(a) Except as provided in subsection (d), whoever knowingly possesses or causes to be present a firearm or other dangerous weapon in a Federal facility (other than a Federal court facility), or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 1 year, or both.
(b) and (c) excluded for readability
(d) Subsection (a) shall not apply to -
(1) the lawful performance of official duties by an officer, agent, or employee of the
United States, a State, or a political subdivision thereof, who is authorized by law to engage in or supervise the prevention, detection, investigation, or prosecution of any violation of law;
(2) the possession of a firearm or other dangerous weapon by a Federal official or a member of the Armed Forces if such possession is authorized by law; or
(3) the lawful carrying of firearms or other dangerous weapons in a Federal facility incident to hunting or other lawful purposes.

His reply:

Are you going to dress like Elmer Fudd and, when you approach the metal detector, you’ll whisper "shhhh…be vewy, vewy quiet…I’m hunting rabbits…pwease wefer to section (a), subsection (d), 3, heh heh heh heh…" Can I watch?

fotD 33

2009-07-24T07:39:00.003-04:00

May 09 159 by Lord Jim, featured in the flickr pool Neon Boneyard

fotD 32

2009-07-19T21:41:00.003-04:00

File under 'if you've thought of it, you're definitely not the only one':

Rock Climbing, Oklahoma City by 1980Andrew

Detroit has a few opportunities to do the same thing. This would be great, especially right next to traffic on the Rouge Bridge.

conserve

2009-07-15T21:09:00.004-04:00

I didn't read the Palin op-ed carefully. Even skimming it went against my recent self-imposed blackout of all things AK gov. But I was looking for news on something else and there it was, both her shpiel and the numerous reactions to it. One of those reactions came from someone else I don't give much attention to, but in this case he reflected exactly what I wonder about regarding Republicans and conservatism. Isn't the central tenet to be careful, not move too quickly, and... conserve? So how can conservatives be in favor of burning through essential natural resources? From the Daily Kos:

But I don't eschew the value of conservative thought, with the emphasis on conservation. A truly conservative person, a cautious and pragmatic individual, would save some supplies, just in case. Call it rainy day money, or emergency supplies, whatever you like. In tough times, those reserves will help you survive. And the best way to employ them is in conjunction with a plan. Like our would-be farmer from the analogy, those reserves might help you survive until you can set up a self-sustaining system to meet your needs. A survivor on a raft in the ocean might try calculating how long it might take before rescue, or how far to travel to a life-sustaining island, when figuring out how to ration his or her emergency rations. But, just eating those rations up in the hopes that something will change by the time you're finished, is not acting to a plan. It is a desperate, foolish act, because when you are reduced to that level, you have given up conscious control over your own destiny.

I learned that style of conservatism, ironically, in college. Having very limited cash resources taught me the sting of burning through them without setting aside at least a little, or trying to shave a little off my consumption every day to extend the days that I'd have money. It's a simple lesson, really. Those that blather on about too much spending and too much change should probably also be lecturing the likes of me on the merits of slowing down a little and saving a little of our energy resources.

Heh.

2009-07-06T22:15:00.002-04:00

I'm reeeaaallllly not one for I-told-you-so, especially in this case since most everyone agrees with me anyway as is evident by bailouts, manipulated bankruptcies, etc. (though not for Ford, pointedly), but I stumbled across this little ditty from October 2006 while looking for something else.

fotD 31

2009-07-06T21:39:00.003-04:00

Dip Garden, by Aerial Photography

A new favorite flickr contact: Aerial Photography.

One of the things I miss most about flying for a living is the wonderful perspective 1,000 feet gives you, and the combination voyeur/explorer feel of looking into people's lives and the natural world from a very powerful and unique perspective, straight down.

vote for growth

2009-06-17T22:32:00.003-04:00

Finally got a chance to take in my recycling last Saturday. RecycleHere! was in Corktown (not quite here, but until I get curbside everything, I'm sticking with these guys in spite of the drive) so I filled every cubic inch of the car and headed to the train station.

While there I met Matthew Naimi, the guy who started RecycleHere!. We ended up standing on the curb, talking for about 30 minutes about his run for Detroit City Council, RH's business model and activities, growing recycling in Detroit, urban agriculture, even urban aquaculture; in fact, he not only didn't look at me like I was from Mars when I suggested growing fish in the city, but he took off with the idea like only someone who's thought of it before could have, suggesting that the effluent and water from the fish be turned into compost for the co-located crops.

The first thing I asked about, not having an opportunity every day to talk to someone knowledgeable about how Council really works, was whether my friends and I had it wrong - would the city in fact benefit from a representational rather than the current at-large Council? Absolutely, he said - we weren't missing any subtleties. Accountability is lacking and this is the only way to get it. Indeed, there's an initiative that will be given some thought during the next session (I think) he said. This would be great, but I'm not optimistic that anything is going to change unless at least a few of the Council members are changed first. Those sitting now have been able to get re-elected specifically because of the lack of a representational requirement; I don't see them acting against their own interests, no matter the interests of Detroit.

Some other items:

Matthew's got a great grasp of the social and organizational issues around not just garbage removal and recycling in the city, but also of the unions and utilities.
RecycleHere! comes across all happy and light (note Carl Oxley's bee logo) but positioning it the way he did and making it viable was very savvy.
He's supporting a Detroit-based recycling program that, if successful, will replace his company. He's willing to put himself out of business to see the city succeed.
He supports urban agriculture, and understands that this isn't just a nice way to help inner-city residents grow some good organic food. Detroit's vast open spaces are a resource the city could leverage to underpin a number of directions for improvement.

If you live in Detroit, give serious consideration to Matthew Naimi for City Council. More info at recyclehere.net and on Twitter.

this is kinda short, but...

2009-06-16T17:47:00.003-04:00

...y'know, Twitter's down. That whole Iran voting like it's 2000 in Florida thing.

Just saw a trailer for a Depp/Bale movie about John Dillinger called 'Public Enemies.' Looks so cool I don't even mind that it's yet another chance for my wife to get all drool-y over Johnny.

Just have to get Iowa onboard...

2009-06-12T07:22:00.003-04:00

Stumbled across this looking for something else. It's the abstract of a UC Berkeley Engineering study on corn ethanol.

It is shown here that one burns 1 gallon of gasoline equivalent in fossil fuels to produce 1 gallon of gasoline equivalent as ethanol from corn. Then corn ethanol is burned as a gasoline additive or fuel. Burning the same amount of fuel twice to drive a car once is equivalent to halving the fuel efficiency of those cars that burn corn ethanol, and will cause manifold damage to air, surface water, soil and aquifers. The overall energy balance of corn conversion to ethanol demonstrates that 65% of the input energy is lost during the conversion. Carbon dioxide sequestration by corn is nullified when corn ethanol is burned. Therefore, we conclude, subsidizing ethanol from corn as a gasoline oxygenate is one of the most misguided public policy decisions made in recent history.

College freshmen get it (though the crisp 1 to 1 ratio above may be a little more blurry than that). We need to stop subsidizing (some say to the tune of $5B) this wrongheaded approach that is pushing up food prices, increasing our dependence on petrochemicals, and exacerbating the problem it's touted to solve.

'What are they thinking?' They're not.

2009-06-11T13:27:00.003-04:00

I know not everyone surrounds themselves with as much environmental info as I do, but I've been barraged the last few days by two stunningly ignorant comments, and one that just made me want to strangle someone.

The first, a discussion about the serving options for a recent birthday party. We were going to get about 50 inexpensive plates (not ceramic, but you know, actual non-throwaway plates) so they could be used for all such parties in our family. Someone was trying to dissuade us in favor of plastic due to the work of cleaning them. We said we didn't want to keep generating all that one-time-use garbage, buying plastic plates every time there was a get-together, throwing more crap away. The answer, "But they're already made."

The second came while talking to someone about the floating mass of platic and garbage in the Pacific north of Hawaii (I mistakenly mentioned it was the size of Texas. It's actually twice that.). Their solution, "You'd think they could figure out a way to burn it."

The one that made my hands clench hungrily was when a condo organization's board member dismissively waved off the assertion that leaving every front and back door light on all night (which she'd just suggested for security's sake) would waste a lot of energy and add to the growing amount of light pollution in the area. "Nobody cares about that." Tool.

I tend to believe it's only an information problem that stands in the way of solving most of our problems, that if we can just inform most people about the effects of certain actions, they'll come around. But it's more than that, isn't it? People need to be able to think past the very next thought in their heads, and if they don't do that habitually, who the hell has the time to train them?

A Sticky Problem

2009-05-29T08:30:00.003-04:00

I enjoyed this morning's NYT editorial 'Forests and the Planet' about the House climate bill including pollution offsets, and jumped in with both feet. It mentioned how environmental groups (NYT says they were ‘European,’ that could be; I don’t remember) standing in the way of the proposed Kyoto Protocol’s proposal to allow offset payments by nations if they didn’t meet carbon reduction levels. Excluding that from Kyoto contributed to rampant deforestation, a Pennsylvania of rain forest every year, which then can't sequester as much as 20% of global carbon pollution. It may have even been the first time I heard the phrase about the perfect being the enemy of the good, because that’s what this obstruction was. It stuck in people’s craw that a polluter, the developed world, could just keep on keeping on and write a check and ‘get off’ without doing their fair share.

I’m the first to admit I can be a vindictive, petty prick; I really do want to see companies suffer if they’ve knowingly skirted legalities, suppressed science to increase profits, and lied about it all through slick marketing campaigns, and I want to see traditionally dirty industries cleaned up. That said, if I can see the benefit of allowing nations and companies to pay their way out of decreasing their emissions, why didn’t the Europeans? ~~We all~~ Most of us want companies and nations to run cleaner, but if we can’t quite get there, doesn’t denying the option of paying for some other positive measure smack of the worst kind of petty hair-splitting? The active word here is ‘pay.’ One way or another, money will be diverted from the bottom line to anti-pollution efforts. Further, as long as a company or country is paying these fines, it leaves the door open to influencing them further. What I’m trying to say is, as far as the editorial is concerned, count me in. I think we should definitely support this kind of measure, if not as an end goal at least as a step in the right direction.

The problem, as always, arises once we consider the economics. The editorial uses the example of an acre of rainforest being worth $250 when converted to crops but $2,000 when used as a carbon sink. What happens after ten or so years of slowing deforestation, though, when the drumbeat of impending global warming doom has dulled and the prices of mahogany and bananas have risen 1,000%? Then will forest acreage be worth more than $2,000? What if it’s on a waterway, offering easy access to growing populations (we’ll be pushing 8 billion by that point) in need of food, work, and escape from crushing megalopoli? I’m not backing out of my support for the idea, just pointing out that if we are lucky enough to implement it, we’ll need to stay very diligent, taking action to minimize the decrease in its impact as long as it will be useful. Some things we'll have to do will include:

Devalue some forest products (wood, especially exotic woods)
Value sustainable products (fair trade coffee and other sustainable agriculture, ecotourism, medicine research, carbon sink service)
Implement a policing system to ensure compliance (You think getting Pakistan to fight the Taliban was expensive? Try getting Indonesia or Brazil to crack down on every illegal logger. That $2,000 per acre could disappear pretty quickly.)
Implement a carbon-negative economy before the value of carbon sinks drops enough to make sense to mow them down again.

Again, having the safety valve of paying fines if standards can’t or won’t be met is a needed step, and I applaud Congress for including it (even if it is due to a backroom deal with lobbyists - not that it is, I just wouldn’t be surprised). But it’s only the beginning of a very long, very complex fight.

fotD 30

2009-05-23T20:37:00.002-04:00

Paris Exposition: night view, Paris, France, 1900

The Commons on flickr is putting out some very cool photos. I like this one, and it reminds me of Van Gogh's 'Starry Night Over the Rhone.'

The pious and the sinner

2009-05-19T06:54:00.004-04:00

Photo borrowed from Lickbike.com

There was a good NYT piece today on the rivalry between 'Gino the Pious' Bartali and 'Fausto the Sinner' Coppi, a legendary debate which, while it still holds Italians in thrall, I'd never heard of before, and given that my love for the sport is twenty years old, I should have. I'll be checking out more cycling books discussing the pre-Hampsten/Hinault/LeMond/Indurain years.

The article mentions a photo (above) of the two sharing a water bottle that is claimed by each side as proof it was their man who was the better teammate; for my money, I'd say it's Coppi doing the hand-off.

Roast

2009-05-17T07:34:00.002-04:00

Dinner at Michael Symon's Roast in the Book Cadillac last night. Fantastic. It's great for couples but, really, Roast makes for a great group dining venue. We started with mussels that had the faintest hint of dill followed by our entrees. I had the roasted whitefish that was complimented with crab and, again, dill with a nice riesling and was very, very good. However, Michelle had the smoked pork chop with polenta and peppers...this dish took you places. I had visions of a grassy, flowery field on a sunny day, really. The subtle smokey flavor followed by the succulent pork melted in your mouth like soft serve ice cream. Dessert was a vanilla brulee for me and a cherry almond crisp with sherry ice cream for Michelle. I think I came out on top with dessert.

fotD 29

2009-05-16T13:38:00.003-04:00

Atlantis and Hubble against the backdrop of the sun. Taken by Thierry Legault and shared by nasa hq photo.

"I am but an egg."

2009-05-05T21:24:00.002-04:00

fotD 28

2009-03-31T20:15:00.002-04:00

On Top of Things, originally uploaded by Allard One.

my ‘running capitalist dog’ post

2009-03-23T12:45:00.002-04:00

Cleaning off my desktop this morning I skimmed an article about Roger Baldwin, civil libertarian and the founder of the ACLU, saw a caption about communism (he wasn't), and was sent on a mental tangent. It dawned on me for the first time how similar the struggle between capitalism and communism is to that between rationality and religion. In both cases we’re presented with systems that have been tested, again and again, and while capitalism and rationality do have their occasional shortcomings, they work really well as long as they are practiced consistently and fairly. Communism and religion? Their ideas may feel good, they strive to quickly answer questions people want answered, but neither can produce any tangible proof of their validity. The practice of communism especially was based on predicted results of untested hypotheses and relied on a complete lack of history to sound believable. Nevertheless, people bought into it based on nothing more than a hunch. What’s funny about this is the fact that so many people who are die-hard, laissez-faire, no-new-taxes business types are also religious. Crazy.

Then, during lunch, I came across a post titled ‘Buffett Speaks’ by Frank Boosman. More red meat for my patriotic mood.

Sign. Me. Up.

2009-03-16T11:27:00.002-04:00

Doug, Pete, and Chad, too, I'd bet.

Thanks to fixed gear for the global awareness.

it's coming...

2009-03-12T22:37:00.002-04:00

Tesla's Model S (for sedan). Half the price of the roadster and slated for 2011. Sounds like a long way off, but it's not.

A sneak peak from Treehugger:

MRSA

2009-03-12T22:33:00.004-04:00

Great. A new acronym we're going to wish we'd never heard. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus is a bacterial infection that is resistant to most antibiotics. I'll spare you the grisly skin details, but suffice to say it kills more people in the U.S. now than AIDS. 'What's the culprit?' you may be wondering, 'global warming, insects?' Pigs.

Pigs grown in CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations), the industrial scale source of almost all of our meat, even a lot of the stuff labeled 'organic,' are packed in tighter than Londoners in the 1300s. And, like every European city in the Middle Ages that mixed high density with animals and shoddy cleaning, CAFOs breed disease almost as efficiently as they ~~breed~~ create tail-less pigs. Enter MRSA.

I'd never heard of this particular infection until today when I read two different pieces about it (I'm supposed to be on vacation). Just one more reason to start cutting down on your meat intake unless it's from more natural, sustainable places than antibiotic- and petroleum-fed factories. And this really is the only thing that's going to bring about change: your decision to eat sustainably. This is not a top-down solution, especially because the President's choice for Secretary of Agriculture is an industry guy. We have to start giving a damn about where our food is coming from and demanding better.

fotD 27

2009-02-22T20:14:00.003-05:00

Cool picture. Depressing story.

fotD 26

2009-02-18T09:23:00.004-05:00

I don't care if they've become cliches. Hiking canyons like this is very high on my travel list.

Not in Chicago? That's right, bitches!

2009-02-16T13:29:00.007-05:00

I'm not sure how Detroit got included in that very short list of cities showing Medicine for Melancholy, but I'm sure glad it did. Unfortunately, when we saw it at the remarkable Detroit Film Theater (want a beer and a brownie before the movie in a beautiful setting? no prob) there was an issue with the whole digital vs. 35mm format thing so the colors and crispness were pretty much nonexistent. But, for our troubles, the theater manager not only let us know up front, but handed out free passes as everyone left. A class act, one of Detroit's finest. M4M will be playing there three more days, Feb. 20-22. You should go. If you can't, the website says it's available now on IFC in Theaters or on DVD this spring.

Bike-friendly fixie tour of San Francisco! Indie soundtrack!

It only sucks if you're the co-optee

2009-02-16T12:50:00.003-05:00

Even my dental hygienist, a nice lady but not what you'd ever call 'cool,' is on Facebook. Time (about as cool as my hygienist) jots down ten reasons why X-ers are shoving the cool kids away from their social networking table and taking over; flab, mom support groups, twenty-year-old cassette tapes, and all.

There was a time when it was cool to be on Facebook. That time has passed. Facebook now has 150 million members, and its fastest-growing demographic is 30 and up. At this point, it's way cooler not to be on Facebook. We've ruined it for good, just like we ruined Twilight and skateboarding. So git! And while you're at it, you damn kids better get off our lawn too.

What's interesting to watch as our culture really sharpens its Peter Pan chops is how the irrelevant and uncool (read: anyone over 30 with a boring job) are now not passively being left behind as each younger generation adopts and casts off their fads. We're actually wresting those fads away from the younger set, practically forcing them on to redefine cool away from us and (in Facebook's case at least) helping the thing to gain marketabilitty even as it loses bleeding-edge coolness. I can't think of any examples of this happening before, can you?

Michigan Central Station - 1987

2009-02-14T09:25:00.001-05:00

Caught the Black Keys last night

2009-01-30T09:05:00.002-05:00

FOUR people's worth of really good noise poured out of those two guys.

splatter

2009-01-28T07:48:00.003-05:00

For every prole that ever indignantly asserted, "I coulda done that in five minutes!," now you can give it a shot.

added Charlie Rose to the TiVo season pass

2009-01-23T01:24:00.004-05:00

Can't sleep tonight. Got up to grab a quick snack and watch a few minutes of TV which quickly turned into 25. On PBS, Charlie Rose was interviewing retired General Jack Keane about the situation in Iraq and the Middle East. It was refreshing to hear a journalist carefully parsing out his questions while respectfully acknowledging the complexity of the situation and the experience of the person in front of him, and enthralling to listen to the very measured but very knowledgeable and direct answers Keane gave him.

I've dropped out of knowing day to day what is going on in Iraq, but according to Keane, the end of this month will bring provincial elections that will shape the gov't much more fairly than the first go 'round due to increased Sunni enfranchisement. He's of the opinion that an Arab Muslim democracy allied with the U.S. is not just a goal, but almost an inevitability. I hope he's right.

He also talked a bit about Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and India. An interesting point that he made about the dismal situation in Pakistan was Musharraf's easing of pressure on the Taliban once the U.S. asked for help in Afghanistan from NATO. Our inability to dedicate the number of troops to stabilize the country and subsequent request for assistance made us look weak to Musharraf, leading him to hedge his bets and try to appear less an American toady to the Islamists. Another point he made was that the U.S. has been and will need to continue trying to convince India to throttle back a little on the Pakistanis, especially in Kashmir so that the Pakistanis can retrain their freed-up troops for counter-insurgency work so that they can address the growing internal dangers of Islamic fundamentalism. The fulcrums and balances are incredibly complex and bely the politics and shallow media reporting skimming over the top of them.

January 20th, 2009

2009-01-20T13:02:00.003-05:00

"Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer..."

great idea

2009-01-18T21:31:00.003-05:00

Check this post out on Pruned. It's about really driving home the experiences of others, making them present in our daily lives.

BTW, their symbol's NFLX

2009-01-17T14:23:00.003-05:00

If they don't have your next DVD available at the closest shipping center, Netflix will now mail you the next locally-available movie in your queue while you 'wait' for the first movie in your queue to find its way to you. So they're basically tacking on a movie you want to see for free, without counting against your account for that month, just because it might take an extra day for your first movie to get to you.

Part of me rankles at this type of thinking as they're just movies, and it's just a day or so. Anyone who'd actually get upset about this needs to readjust their priorities.

That said, I also recognize the remarkable level of service they embrace by doing this; they're saying that their customers should not expect just solid service at a good price, but truly exceptional service from people who actually look for ways to solve a problem before anyone reasonable even thinks they have one.

At this rate

2009-01-17T13:44:00.004-05:00

we're going to lose everyone cool. RIP Andrew Wyeth and Ricardo Montalban.

they've seriously GOT to be kidding

2009-01-12T20:12:00.002-05:00

This has got to be the coolest, most daunting, most elemental thing I've ever seen a person do.

wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

I'd guess the rest of their job isn't quite this cool.

2009-01-11T22:20:00.001-05:00

A benefit...

2009-01-08T16:50:00.004-05:00

...of working in a federal building is that sometimes I leave work and find myself in the middle of a demonstration. Today I just happened to have my camera. Israel supporters to the left of me, Palestine supporters to the right.

I completely support both sides' right to demonstrate and in a way am glad they were, but the whole thing smacked to me of the underlying dilemma: both sides are good and pissed off with real grievances, yet the only things between them today were indignance and noise and police with guns directing traffic. No discussion, no attempt whatsoever to figure out the problem. Maybe if just a few more people get killed, a solution will magically appear.

UPDATE: Because I didn't know enough about why those yahoos were scrapping their cease-fire agreement, I looked it up. Turns out the Israelis in this case really do have a leg to stand on this time. Hamas members died when Israel collapsed some tunnels being dug into their territory, and the rocket attack retribution started in November. Good article, worth a read.

did someone open a window?

2008-12-18T07:12:00.001-05:00

He's done it again. Read a Balloon Juice blurb about Obama's choice to lead the inaugural invocation and my first reaction was, "What? Yeech." But then I thought, as I read further, 'well, throw the yahoos a bone where it doesn't matter policy-wise, which not only makes nice, it also relegates that kind of thing to where it belongs, an obviously religious context without the implication of validity one inch beyond it.' And then a commenter also pointed out that while the guy is a bible-thumping bigot, at least he's not a complete neanderthal.

So this begs the question: is Obama really this incredibly cagey and strategericish, or am I just playing mental Twister so I stay comfortable with his decisions, stoking the afterglow?

sea change

2008-12-11T07:13:00.002-05:00

For anyone feeling like Obama isn't making good appointment choices because they don't align with a particular swath of ideology, I say you're a tool. Did you listen to what he said on the campaign trail? Did he say anything about enacting a narrow ideological agenda, or did he say things like 'reaching out,' 'bipartisan,' and 'all Americans?'

I'm enjoying being surprised by his choices on an almost daily basis, even when I'm forced to say, 'Who? Seriously?!' I'm also enjoying the paradigm shift some of his choices are signaling. Case in point, the Secretary of Energy, for the last eight years a political giveaway to political or industry hacks like Michigan's own Spencer Abraham. This time around, it's going to be Steven f-ing Chu, a guy who can actually think about the truly unprecedented and essential energy challenges we face without reaching for his industry-supplied talking points. A fantastic pick.

reality mixers

2008-12-09T07:40:00.002-05:00

I didn't get too worked up when U2 3D came out - I figured it was an overpriced marketing ploy for the most part, showing a concert on a movie screen, though I wish now that I'd seen it. The company that produced U2 3D, 3ality Digital, is expanding its reach into sports with rugby, basketball, and now the NFL with a 3-D minicast of last Thursday's game to three test sites.

Picturing what a 3-D sports broadcast is like is cool, but I can't help but think the experience will be limited by the fact that the cameras will still be outside the field of play. More intriguing is the idea of immersive viewing, possibly still 3-D but reliant not on a border of cameras (and mikes) but a network of them, scattered throughout the field of play on uniforms and helmets, the ball, the field, the goals, etc (not sure how you'd make a shock-proof minicam that could take the hit of a 300 lb dude that can run 10-second hundreds, but I'm the idea guy, not the tech guy). Cycling and rowing would be ideal sports for first gen systems as they have lots of inanimate, non-bending surfaces on which to mount stuff, and they'd greatly benefit from letting people see what goes on up-close (it just dawned on me that Nascar has uses this kind of immersion - in its infancy, but car-to-car and dashboard perspectives nonetheless).

An interesting consequence of such a set up could be the rise of the mixer, a post-action video choreographer (or team of them most likely) that knit together the perspectives into a fluid experience of the action, to augment the viewer's ability to move through different perspectives in more or less real time. How cool would it be to be in the middle of a pack of sprinting cyclists, in the scrum looking up from the ball's perspective at the players, or in the end zone, watching a player and the ball converging right toward you?

fotD 25

2008-12-08T19:04:00.005-05:00

Really?! A sea slug forum?! I just frickin' love flickr. Cooler than frickin' sharks with frickin' lasers on their heads. Thanks to Chad's faves and the doubtful guest for the photo.

willful ignorance, lack of adult supervision, and your portfolio

2008-12-07T16:39:00.003-05:00

If you'd like a sober and very informative explanation of what the hell has been going on in the financial world, and you have 38 minutes to listen, check out this interview with Michael Greenberger. No one can say we are not F-U-N here at bad juju.

Re: Fw: BlindDate

2008-12-04T10:52:00.001-05:00

A friend emailed me this commercial and while I empathize with the protagonist, it got me thinking...

On the long list of crappy mascots, and this is coming from someone who was a 'Laker' so I KNOW crappy mascots, OSU's really must be the worst. Seriously, who could possibly rally behind the overgrown seed of a slow-growing tree? 'WOOHOO! Go Coconuts!! Go Little Helicopter Maple Seed Things!! Go Buckeyes.'

Who's That Lady?

2008-12-03T08:33:00.002-05:00

The CD changer didn't disappoint this morning...(in order as randomly selected by the player)
Mope-The Bloodhound Gang
Dreaming of Me-Depeche Mode (disc 97)
Policy of Truth-Depeche Mode (disc 70)
Tonight-Smashing Pumpkins (disc 92)
Crush-Smashing Pumpkins (disc 136)
Devil Baby-Mark Knopfler
Lili S'ent Fout-Toufic Farroukh/Yasmine
I'll Be All Smiles Tonight-Martina McBride w/ The Chieftains
The Girl From Ipanema/Manha de Carnival (instrumental)-Laurindo Almeida
The Theme from Shaft-Issac Hayes
Who's That Lady?-The Isley Bros. (I didn't even know that I had this song)
(shower intermission) 1, maybe, 2 songs
Franklin's Tower-Greatful Dead
Miss You-Rolling Stones
Nothin' But Hers-Goober & The Peas
Some Kind of Friend-Barry Manilow

Thoroughly Disappointing

2008-12-02T16:21:00.003-05:00

Just read a summary of Charlie Gibson's exit interview with the president. I'm not sure which was more inadequate, the transcriber's typing skills or W's thoughts on his eight years.

"In other words, I didn't campaign and say, 'Please vote for me, I'll be able to handle an attack,'" he said. "In other words, I didn't anticipate war."

Yeesh.

UPDATE: I changed the link to the full transcript, which in its complete context is just as unsettling.

over and over and over...

2008-12-01T14:16:00.004-05:00

There are a few albums that I can listen to almost endlessly. Strangely, I don't often think to choose them when looking for something to listen to, but when I do, I can and have listened to them over and over, regardless of my mood (e.g., I once listened exclusively to Mother's Milk for a drive across Michigan and back, 310 miles, in a jeep that couldn't safely go over 60). In no order:

Peter Gabriel, Passion
The Cure, Staring at the Sea
Butthole Surfers, Electriclarryland
Violent Femmes, Add It Up
The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Mother's Milk
Jane's Addiction, Ritual de lo Habitual
The Pixies, Doolittle
Moby, Play
Sublime, Sublime
The Pogues, If I Should Fall From Grace With God

I bet all of these are at least 10 years old. I didn't add a couple that I listen to a lot now because I'm not sure how they'll shake out over time, though I'd expect to see Blanche in there. And anything by Miley Cyrus, definitely. I do have to wonder if there is a lot of new stuff that I'd feel the same about if only I had time to find it. What albums can you listen to repeatedly in their entirety (please, add in comments)? Are they similarly tied to an earlier point in your life, or has the list evolved?

In other news, water is wet.

2008-11-25T07:38:00.003-05:00

Whaddaya know, groups of atheists aren't as crazy as groups of sun-worshippers, idolators, and hate-filled carpetbaggers. We do, however, rampantly and lazily paraphrase. From Balloon Juice:

Turns out, societies that have more non-believers murder and rape each other on a much lower level than we here in America:
In his new book, Society Without God, Phil Zuckerman looks at the Danes and the Swedes—probably the most godless people on Earth. They don’t go to church or pray in the privacy of their own homes; they don’t believe in God or heaven or hell. But, by any reasonable standard, they’re nice to one another. They have a famously expansive welfare and health care service. They have a strong commitment to social equality. And—even without belief in a God looming over them—they murder and rape one another significantly less frequently than Americans do.
Denmark and Sweden aren’t exceptions. A 2005 study by Gregory Paul looking at 18 democracies found that the more atheist societies tended to have relatively low murder and suicide rates and relatively low incidence of abortion and teen pregnancy.
So, this is a puzzle. If you look within the United States, religion seems to make you a better person. Yet atheist societies do very well—better, in many ways, than devout ones.
****
The sorry state of American atheists, then, may have nothing to do with their lack of religious belief. It may instead be the result of their outsider status within a highly religious country where many of their fellow citizens, including very vocal ones like Schlessinger, find them immoral and unpatriotic. Religion may not poison everything, but it deserves part of the blame for this one.
Unsurprising, and worthy of a discussion.

No more Studio 28

2008-11-23T22:30:00.003-05:00

Not many multiplexes are worth a moment's notice, but for seven years Grand Rapids' Studio 28 was THE multiplex, the largest in the world with 20 screens (the '28' comes from 28th Street). Tonight was its last night; falling attendance doing it in as it's dropped 75% since its '96 peak of 1.7 million.

Odd to think that pretty much the only theater we attended while in college could be mostly empty, and not sure why attendance plummeted there worse than elsewhere.

slacker

2008-11-21T09:48:00.005-05:00

The lucky problem with having a job that is so wide-ranging is that the avenue to goofing off is often within only one step of actual work. Thankfully it leads me to things like this.

UDPATE: Doug mentioned that the above was something he'd hang over his fireplace, and talking about it reminded me of another of my favorites, Boccioni's Dynamism of a Cyclist. Interestingly, Boccioni's cyclist is moving right to left, not a common direction for cyclist paintings that I can think of but pretty common for photography.

a human rights upside to global recession?

2008-11-14T23:48:00.002-05:00

In 'The Human Rights Vacuum,' (a very quick read, so go read it) Samantha Power makes the correct assertion that China's insatiable need for resources and lack of concern for human rights, paired with the US' loss of stature in that arena, has led to a global environment that meets genocide with shrugs, violent oppression with averted eyes.

However, with gas at four bucks a barrel or whatever it fell to today, and China laying off wave after wave of workers, will that diminished appetite allow it to pause and take a breath long enough to reconsider the atrocities it endorses (through trade and its essential UN Security Council vote/veto)? Will it at least open the door to the UN (and maybe a new US administration, flush with international goodwill the likes of which we haven't had since 9/11) convincing them that over the long term, it is not in their interests to tolerate (and promote, in the case of Burmese weapons sales) activities that the rest of the world would condemn (as has the Bush administration) if only they weren't so damn afraid of what it would do to their business ties in those countries?

Unfortunately, I think the window of opportunity is too small. The recession probably won't last long enough to allow perspectives to shift in this way, the UN is too ineffectual in ending rights abuses, etc... But... if the mood of the increasingly angry American consumer could be further stoked with the realization that dollars go to China so they can be turned into things like rocket launchers and sent to Sudan and Burma, then there would be multiple threats to China's continued course of active inaction.

A boy can dream, can't he?

Detroit 3 Bailout Smackdown: Brooks vs. Lessenberry

2008-11-14T07:04:00.003-05:00

David Brooks:

"...the biggest threat to a healthy economy is not the socialists of campaign lore. It's CEOs. It's politically powerful crony capitalists who use their influence to create a stagnant corporate welfare state."

"There seems to be no one who believes the companies are viable without radical change. A federal cash infusion will not infuse wisdom into management. It will not reduce labor costs. It will not attract talented new employees. As Megan McArdle of The Atlantic wittily put it, 'Working for the Big Three magically combines vast
corporate bureaucracy and job security in one completely unattractive package.'"

"...capital that could have gone to successful companies and programs will be directed toward companies with a history of using it badly."

Jack Lessenberry:

"Yes, something needs to be done for Detroit's automakers, though they've worked for years at not deserving it. But that something needs to be intelligent, creative and long-term. We need a creative vision for the future. Anderson says: 'It is not unreasonable to believe that [the Big Three] might survive as self-sustaining companies if government money can get them over the credit crunch and deep recession that is expected.'"

"That's a gamble that I reluctantly think our government should take. I have no interest in helping creatures like William Clay Ford, for the long-term, stupidly arrogant leaders of General Motors — or, for that matter, the shortsighted leaders of the United Auto Workers union. But this entire region doesn't deserve to be punished for their sins."

"What everyone has to get through their noggins is that it is never, ever going to be like it was. Things are going to get worse before they get better, if they get better, no matter what."

kindergartners in a world of wolves

2008-11-14T07:01:00.002-05:00

'Fine! If you don't agree with me, I'm not going to share my cookies and grape juice!'

South Carolina priest and diocese deny communion to Obama voters

2008-11-12T10:56:00.003-05:00

As part of our Travel and Adventure series we have The Fly Trap, A Finer Diner, in Ferndale. This place lives up to its self proclaimed reputation because a finer diner it is. This statement being based on the 2 dishes we sampled: The Cheapsteak Sandwich and the Hot Spiced Beef Brisket Sandwich. I thought the Cheapsteak was very good, although better eaten with a knife and fork, until I was offered a taste of the Brisket....The Brisket won hands down this day...by far one of the best sandwiches I've had in a long time.

Even The Nights are Better

2008-11-12T08:42:00.003-05:00

Hola Kiddies!

I've come out of hiding.

I have a 200 disc carousel CD changer that, I swear, has a personality. The discs are shoved in this thing randomly with no organization as to genre, artist...whatever. It really likes The Rolling Stones....which, I think is because The B enjoys them too....but it will just as often toss in several selections from The White Stripes or Mel Torme while cycling through the collection in the random setting. Yesterday mornings combination made me want to stay at home and keep my stereo company....the songs came out in this order:
Come Sail Away-Stix
Old Enough-Raconteurs
Adia-Sarah McLachlan
Dear Life-Chantal Kreviazuk
Mandy-Barry Manilow
Start Wearing Purple-Gogol Bordello
Even The Nights are Better-Air Supply
(mystery segment while in the shower and when I got out I thought that maybe the mood had changed)
Stick Shifts and Saftey Belts-Cake
Girl-Beck
Finishing with.....
It's A Crime-Magnetic Fields.

I gave the old girl a hug at this point and went about my day.

SO glad

2008-11-08T07:31:00.004-05:00

from Defective Yeti

shifting tide?

2008-11-08T07:08:00.004-05:00

From Balloon Juice, an interesting map showing voting shifts by county between 2004 and 2008. I was surprised by the implied prevalence of blue in the first place - there is only one state filled with counties that are dark blue, which tells me most weren't blood red to begin with. I'm not discounting the notable shifts to blue (20%+), just noting that the degree of the shift in most cases wasn't huge (10-19%), which is both reassuring and not: it's nice to know the country as a whole is more moderate than it can sometimes feel, but I hope we're not a small shift back to pink that undoes any good that will be done in the next four years.

Anyway, check out the accompanying post at Balloon Juice.

Finally

2008-11-05T00:29:00.002-05:00

For the first time in nine years, I'm not fearful or depressed about the direction our country will be taking.

Now we wait...

2008-11-04T12:12:00.001-05:00

Today's the day.

2008-11-04T06:38:00.003-05:00

"A memorable day. We do not know yet for what. Perhaps for the disintegration of the country, perhaps for another proof that the North is timid and mercenary, perhaps for demonstration that Southern bluster is worthless. We cannot tell yet what historical lesson the event of November 6, 1860, will teach, but the lesson cannot fail to be weighty."
~diary entry from a New York supporter of Abraham Lincoln

We've been hearing the Kennedy comparisons, but I'm enjoying the Lincoln comparisons more: senators from Illinois, country at a tipping point, painstaking intellectual rigor, and of course, the issue of equality.

Given the rivers of money involved and the chasm between the two campaigns in terms of execution, reach, efficiency, and ability to remain on the offensive, the McCain campaign should be ruined. But it's not. It's existence doesn't just speak to tenacity, but to a very real and insidious current flowing through American minds; the same politics of fear, contempt, and division that brought us the rise of DeLay, Hastert, Gonzalez, Wolfowitz, Pearl, Bush 43, et al. The fact that their ilk could be elected to anything higher than mayor of Wasilla speaks to our greatest deficiencies; deficiencies which threaten us still, maybe more than ever, today.

From the instant I heard about Barack Obama's keynote convention speech I knew that this guy was in the pipeline, that he was destined to run for president, and with my first impression I was fully on board with that. So, I've spent the last two years working to overcome that initial buy-in and my disappointment with his few missteps with a sometimes dogged and absurd openmindedness, partly to ferret out what candidates might actually do instead of what they say to get elected, but mostly to avoid what I fear will be crushing disappointment because in this case the bar has been set so high. Many believe this is a forgone conclusion, but it's not. Lincoln felt the same way, nervous to the last minute, wondering even if he'd carried his hometown of Springfield. Obama said as much the same thing the other day with his 'snatching defeat from the jaws of victory' quip. We could very easily throw this thing away, today, bowing to our weaknesses and choosing the devil we know.

C'mon America. Surprise me.

Fw: Lance at the 2009 Giro d'Italia

2008-11-03T13:54:00.002-05:00

Some weeks ago I heard Lance Armstrong was going to be coming out of retirement, it was said to win another Tour de France. In my inbox the other day, though, was an offer from Trek Travel to take me to the Giro d'Italia to see him compete in that.

"One of the greatest regrets in my cycling career was never doing the Giro d'Italia.” -Lance Armstrong
Seven-time Tour de France champion, Lance Armstrong, will wipe away all regrets and race the Giro d’Italia for the very first time. And this is your one and only chance to witness it live with Team Astana’s Official Tour Operator and the only company endorsed by Lance himself—Trek Travel.

However, a VeloNews article mentions five races he's supposedly planning (Amgen TofCali, Paris-Nice, TdGeorgia, Dauphine Libere, and of course the TdF), none of which offer the Giro's pink jersey. What's up? Further, the VN piece quotes an Astana press officer as saying, "He is no part of our team."

So whatever. It looks from a Google search that he's coming back, most likely with Astana, although I don't have time to verify the Giro thread. If this is true, it will be interesting because my only gripe with the guy was that he never really did much except win the Tour. If he can compete in or even win the Giro (which features a harder climb than can be found in the TdF, and that is really saying something), without the 'Blue Train' of his now dismatled and scattered US Postal/Discovery Channel teams, it will be a nice feather in his cap. I seem to remember that first mention of his return mentioning that he was doing it to raising cancer awareness. Not sure that's the case, but whatever his motivation, I'll bet he's cool as a cucumber and not giving too much thought to establishing himself a little higher in cycling's vaunted hierarchy.

your HOLY CRAP factoid of the day

2008-11-03T13:25:00.002-05:00

...the 20th-century industrialization of agriculture has increased the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by the food system by an order of magnitude; chemical fertilizers (made from natural gas), pesticides (made from petroleum), farm machinery, modern food processing and packaging and transportation have together transformed a system that in 1940 produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil-fuel energy it used into one that now takes 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce a single calorie of modern supermarket food. Put another way, when we eat from the industrial-food system, we are eating oil and spewing greenhouse gases. This state of affairs appears all the more absurd when you recall that every calorie we eat is ultimately the product of photosynthesis — a process based on making food energy from sunshine.

~ from Farmer in Chief, by Michael Pollan

Fascinating.

2008-10-24T10:04:00.004-04:00

From Jetson Green, this announcement contains an amazing little kernel that will likely become one of those things in the future where people look back with wonder and ask, "They seriously didn't think of that before?" Kind of like with wheels on suitcases.

Masdar, which I mentioned before, has picked a Chicago firm to develop its 'headquarters' (kind of ominous if you ask me - why can't it be a city hall? Is Masdar going to be a quasi-corporate entity?) which is being billed as the world's first positive energy, mixed use building. Jetson Green follows up with a number of stats that it may or may not achieve, like generating more energy than it consumes, using 70% less water than similar buildings, etc. Impressive and imperative, but those will be accomplishments of scale and process, not in my mind nearly as surprising as one of their other bullet point achievements: They intend to "be the first building in history to generate power for its own assembly, through development of its solar roof pier before the underlying complex."

What a cool idea, and I bet it's one of the first to harness biomimicry from this direction. Everyone is trying to use structural and chemical biomimicry to develop better materials, and reexamining natural processes to tease out better ways of dealing with production and treatment cycles, but this goes right to the source by realizing the simple truth of how life propagates itself sustainably using what is around it, and providing only the seed, which is just an algorithm for future development using those available resources as efficiently as possible. Obviously this is only a first step and won't be fully realized in the immediate sandy environment, but just the fact that people are thinking this way is a huge step. Add in concepts like self-constructing buildings that synthesize micro-local materials (neighboring abandoned buildings?), and you've truly got the cities of our future.

More pix available at the Jetson Green site, from which I borrowed this one.

18 days. Be afraid.

2008-10-17T07:18:00.002-04:00

"Don't underestimate the capacity of Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory," Mr. Obama said. "Don't underestimate our ability to screw it up."

Lincoln's spinning in his grave

2008-10-09T12:51:00.004-04:00

Yesterday when I answered her question about what I thought of the second presidential debate, a relative shot me the same look I reserve for only my most stupefyingly ignorant coworkers. Guess she didn't share my lack of enthusiasm. So it goes.

In celebration of their mutual embrace of mediocre performances, I've mixed up bullets from two different summaries of the debate, one a liveblog by Defective Yeti, the other FactCheck's after-action report:

Obama said, “I favor nuclear power.” That’s a stronger statement than we've heard him make before. As recently as last December, he said, “I am not a nuclear energy proponent.”
Aww rats. Obama and McCain just came out wearing their normal attire. After the "I've got a bracelet" / "oh yeah, well I also have a bracelet" exchange of the first debate, I was hoping they'd arrived encumbered by layers and layers, and would spend the whole debate stripping off articles of clothing and sharing the personal anecdotes associated with each. "This stocking cap was given to me by a grandmother who lost her retirement in the stock market", "well these cuff-links were given to me by an unaborted fetus" ...
Words that will not escape Obama's lips tonight: "I agree with John."
McCain says that fixing Social Security is not very hard, all we have to do is "sit down at the table" ZOMG WHY DIDNT ANYONE EVER THINK OF THAT BEFORE?!
Both candidates oversimplified the causes of the financial crisis. McCain blamed it on Democrats who resisted tighter regulation of federal mortgage agencies. Obama blamed it on financial deregulation backed by Republicans. We find both are right, with plenty of blame left over for others, from home buyers to the chairman of the Federal Reserve.
McCain namecheck tally: Leiberman: 3, Palin 0.
For the record, here are all the issues that Obama does not think are "central": The next poet laureate, The redesign of the penny, Whether the toilet paper rolls in the whitehouse crappers will be "over" or "under"
Before the third debate McCain should take a Sharpie and write the following on his hand: "DON'T FORGET: YOU SUCK AT JOKES".
iObama: "We will nuke bin Laden from orbit, even if he's discovered in Tampa."
McCain lamented that the U.S. was forced to “withdraw in humiliation” from Somalia in 1994, but he failed to note that he once proposed to cut off funding for troops to force a faster withdrawal.
It's hard to keep track of all of McCain's heroes. So far he's mentioned Ronald Reagan, Teddy Roosevelt, and Gimli.
McCain misstated his own health care plan and Obama’s in one sentence.
Brokaw has pretty much given up. Unrelated: what's with the weird black rectangle behind these guys. Are individual cable channels photoshopping Cialis ads into that space or what?
McCain: "We're not going to have another cold war ... with Russia." Oo, I wonder who it's going to be with, then? I'm gonna guess Chad.
Yay, another "strategy vs. tactics" semantics fight! This is like hanging out with boardgame nerds.
Obama said his health care plan would lower insurance premiums by up to $2,500 a year. Experts we’ve consulted see little evidence such savings would materialize.
"Part of the challenge for the next commander-in-chief is to foresee the challenges that we'll face. That's why I'll establish a Department of Precrime."
"Gamechanger", drink! But where the hell is "Maverick"? I should have done three or four dozen shots by now.

not for the faint of heart

2008-10-08T14:09:00.001-04:00

Education and critical thought are the only things that will save our species from the yawning black maw of our lesser selves. Too bad many are past saving.

(at a rally in Clearwater, one man hurled a racial epithet at a television cameraman).

Ms. Palin appeared relieved at her exuberant reception. “It’s really great to be around friendly crowds,” she said at a fund-raiser in Boca Raton on Monday evening. “Boy, you guys just get it!”

Ms. Palin was asked if she thought voters who are worried about the economy are turned off by the “attack politics” of bringing up Mr. Ayers on the trail. “It is, though, about the economy about creating jobs and about resource development and energy independence here,” Ms. Palin said. “It comes down to one ticket’s proposal that can be trusted, and another ticket’s proposal to deal with some of these issues and maybe questioning the truthfulness and the intention there. I think it’s very relevant there.”
Elizabeth Dolan, 31, a single mother and waitress, said she counted Mr. Bush among one of the great presidents. “He was really good for my family,” Ms. Dolan said. “We’re hurting financially, but he shares our values just like Sarah Palin does.”

fotD 24

2008-10-07T19:58:00.002-04:00

Ruggles Mine NH, originally uploaded by kdc123.

Hollywood hates teh gay

2008-10-07T08:24:00.006-04:00

I’ve obviously been mistaken for a very long time. I’ve been under the impression that celebrities (like Paris and Penn, but not Fred Thompson of course) should keep their mouths shut and make movies. I’ve also thought that the media and Hollywood are corrosive to American values and toxic to babies, impressionable young white women, and the elderly. At least I thought that's what Fox has been telling me.

But if all that were true, OPM Deputy Director Howard Weizman wouldn’t possibly have referred to Adam Sandler’s movie “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” on the floor of the Senate September 24th as a valid explanation of why the administration opposed Joe Lieberman’s bill to extend benefits to same-sex partners. He cites L.A.'s deep analysis on the subject (from 9/29 print version of Federal Times):

“This is not farfetched. Even Hollywood has discussed this.”

Oh. Well, then… Hollywood, you say? Carry on, dumbass.

consider this article

2008-10-02T16:00:00.003-04:00

DFW thinks about lobsters and the people who consign them to boiling water.

Two good lines:

Even in the harsh penal environment of early America, some colonies had laws against feeding lobsters to inmates more than once a week because it was thought to be cruel and unusual, like making people eat rats.

As I see it, it probably is good for the soul to be a tourist, even if it's only once in a while. Not good for the soul in a refreshing or enlivening way, though, but rather in a grim, steely-eyed, let's-look-honestly-at-the-facts-and-find-some-way-to-deal-with-them way... As a tourist, you become economically significant but existentially loathsome, an insect on a dead thing.

Doug called it

2008-09-28T10:09:00.008-04:00

Early in our ride the other day, Doug mentioned that he hoped Tina Fey would be coming back to SNL in answer to some political comment I made. Not able to keep up as usual, I asked why, and he answered that she looks just like Sarah Palin. Dougie got his wish, in spades. I hope the characterization is short-lived.

SNL skit - Palin and Clinton bipartisan press conference against feminism

- Tried to embed the video, but while it worked fine in preview mode, it wouldn't show up once published.

apropos of not necessarily anything but probably quite a lot

2008-09-28T10:00:00.005-04:00

The instant I saw this photo:

I thought of this painting:

Raft of the Medusa, Theodore Gericault

miles of moving garbage

2008-09-19T11:36:00.002-04:00

Our backyard butts up to a fairly heavily-traveled train track. Last night, eating dinner on the deck, we watched a long train pass, car after car filled to the top with garbage. Plastic bags, a traffic barrel, a couch, metal, all trundling by on its way to somewhere. Piles and piles and piles of it. We've never noticed garbage being carried by the trains before. Where the hell does our garbage go, that it has to be put on a train to trundle off into the distance?

There's something fundamentally insane about fighting a war in the Middle East and paying $4 a gallon to regimes that sponsor terrorism, not to mention the extensive social, health, political, and environmental damage wrought by extraction of other resources like coal, metals, and water, all so we can enrich a country hostile to democracy and throw things out at an increasing rate, negating their potential to reduce the virgin resource stream and not just cancelling out every shred of their embodied energy, but actually increasing our energy consumption so we can continue to acquire things to replace the very similar things we just threw out.

Every shred we throw away presents a lost opportunity. Until we stop seeing the items and garbage around us as an end result, and start seeing it as part of a circle, an economic chain of events which can yield value over and over and over, we will trundle mindlessly toward our doom.

estate tax good...

2008-09-18T12:16:00.002-04:00

…entrenched, inbred oligarchies bad.

Three paragraphs in Nick Kristof’s NYT op-ed on CEO pay illustrate why ‘moneyed’ does not equal ‘deserving’ or ‘accomplished.’

These Brobdingnagian paychecks are partly the result of taxpayer subsidies. A study released a few weeks ago by the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington found five major elements in the tax code that encourage overpaying executives. These cost taxpayers more than $20 billion a year.
That’s enough money to deworm every child in the world, cut maternal mortality around the globe by two-thirds and also provide iodized salt to prevent tens of millions of children from suffering mild retardation or worse. Alternatively, it could pay for health care for most uninsured children in America.

And,

…boards [of directors] pay C.E.O.’s after negotiations that are often more like pillow talk. Relationships are incestuous, and compensation consultants provide only a thin veneer of respectability by finding some “peer group” of companies so moribund that anybody shines in comparison. The result is what critics call the Lake Wobegon effect, which miraculously leaves all C.E.O.’s above average. Indeed, one study of 1,500 companies found that two-thirds claimed to be outperforming their peer groups.

It’s easy for ‘death tax’ haters to sway the public’s opinion on this issue with semantics (‘death tax’ on its own a genius bit of framing – hardly anyone has an estate but everyone dies) because most of us harbor the hope that one day it will be us in the top whatever percent of the country financially, and the suspicion that even if we’re not, the IRS will come for our paltry savings when we die and give it to crack-addicted, atheistic, single mothers of seven or other welfare queens.

The facts are, though, that your estate will almost definitely not qualify. (Mine undoubtedly will thanks to my many wonderful invention ideas that I haven’t yet monetized but surely will.) Sorry.

One other tidbit, from Wikipedia:

In July 2006, the IRS confirmed that it planned to cut the jobs of 157 of the agency’s 345 estate tax lawyers, plus 17 support personnel, by October 1, 2006. Kevin Brown, an IRS deputy commissioner, said that he had ordered the staff cuts because far fewer people were obliged to pay estate taxes than in the past.
Estate tax lawyers are the most productive tax law enforcement personnel at the I.R.S., according to Brown. For each hour they work, they find an average of $2,200 of taxes that people owe the government.

deeply saddening

2008-09-15T14:39:00.003-04:00

Just before we crawled into bed on Saturday night I learned that the day before, author David Foster Wallace had hanged himself in his home. The news kept me awake for a long time.

As a writer, he was intimidatingly talented, the rare kind that simultaneously motivated me to pick up a pen and made the prospect folly. But even more impressive than his ability to find and convey a story was that the personality that shone through his stories seemed so supremely likable. Self-deprecating, bitingly funny, so nice his endless footnotes felt like a conversation that would stretch long into the night out of the wonder of finding someone who gets it, he once refreshingly said that the job of a writer is to make the reader realize how smart they are.

Our loss is, to a much lesser extent, his loss: the lonely and unacceptable death, incrementally, of hope.

amazing

2008-09-12T07:24:00.002-04:00

I've mentioned before how I love that anything I could possibly think of is already being discussed by lots of other people. Today's odd Google query for something that I never thought of before? 'Compost dog poop.'

Results? 1.2 million.

I got a little buzz of satisfaction as I typed in the query and anticipated suggestions appeared, homing in on my exact, weird, subject. TEH WEB ROOLZ!

Savages

2008-09-12T06:22:00.004-04:00

In response to this column by Dan Savage, a friend wrote me:

Finally got around to reading Savage's column in this week's Metro Times; that's the one you asked me about, right? He managed to answer one letter before unleashing on the inane and obvious hypocrisy of Mrs. Palin and the rhetorical Right. I like his gumption, his spirit; he's a flaming gay homosexual liberal, and doesn't give a shit whether you like it or not. More so, he's not afraid of being a 'liberal,' a term the right has so thoroughly demonized that it holds almost as much esteem as 'pedophile' or 'leper' does anymore. I remember a time when being a liberal meant something good. Savage reminds me of that...

He sure does. I'm going to minimize my ranting (here, at least) about the eminently depressing prospect of the Alaskan governor as anything other than a flash in the pan we'll one day laugh nostalgically about. Her emergence and by-golly embrace ('Teen pregnancy? Oh, honey, it happens to all of us, don't you worry about it! You're a woman, hear you roar!') by the Right speaks to the exact issues people like Savage make all the more obvious; thoughtfulness, open-mindedness, rationality, objectivity, and intelligence are near-worthless currency in this, and increasingly all, elections. Obama, Savage, and others are strong, intelligent, and decisive writers and thinkers who effectively tease out the subtleties of a situation to hopefully better grasp the bigger picture. Unfortunately as we've seen, these are not requirements for holding public office. (I've been stunned by the immediate and repeated ironies of the Palin pick; the McCain ads about celebrity, the attacks on lack of experience, the Rovian mantras of lies becoming truth. Wholly less subtle and therefore more masterful than the elevation of Bush to competence over a very different McCain in 2000. Political science theses will be written on just her emergence in the race. So much for not ranting...)

I never understood so saliently before a few months ago how much people adjust their 'reasoning' to fit the situation at hand into their little box of a world view. The callous geniuses behind this race and the previous two are schooling me on just how malleable one's sensibilities are; how quickly people will turn on a dime to fit everything they say into the running commentary in their heads, even if the reality has taken a complete 180; even if they are obviously and completely refuting something they said on camera just days before. I've realized for what seems like a very long time now that most people are truly unable to maintain any consistency of strength and intelligence throughout different aspects of their lives, but it's nevertheless depressing to see such blatant proof of that splayed across the teleprompters and TV screens.

Liberalism is not exempt here - there are buckets of hypocrisy and pandering on both sides of the aisle, politics and the complexities of American life being what it is. However, in this race at least, the bullying ignorance and cheering hypocrisy of the Republican party is most breathtaking and dangerous because it could actually work for them.

WHAM!

2008-09-10T07:03:00.001-04:00

Sweet.

fotD23

2008-08-29T20:35:00.003-04:00

Sunset on my old campus. If we'd had flickr and teh webs when I was there, I would have gotten even less actual schoolwork done. I also liked this one in the same pool.

"a disastrous success"

2008-08-19T08:18:00.004-04:00

(posted for Dougie, the big dumb animal, who seems to have lost his password - an email to me describing beer and other behavior illustrating why he'll be going to hell)

2 things…..the beer making was a disastrous success. I was able to bottle 29 out of a possible 53 bottles. I had to mop up 24 bottles after the bottling bucket came crashing to the floor. The concoction seems to be fairly tasty too.

I was flipping through my most recent bicycling mag…The Black Eyed Peas are headlining a concert following "the buddy ride" or something along those lines. I didn't think too much of it until I flipped back a couple a pages and found the ad for this ride…it's to benefit people with diminished intelligence. I laughed.

UPDATE: Doug gave me a couple of bottles the other day - the first one was for tasting, but the second one will be for hoarding. Bubba Pugly Brewery is off to a great start; the beer was distinctive and mighty tasty at the beginning and finish, lots of character and all of it good.

jet engine in a hummer?

2008-08-12T21:28:00.008-04:00

Read a very cool article today that's been waiting for me to get to it for almost a year. Motorhead Messiah, in Fast Company.

The byline:

Johnathan Goodwin can get 100 mpg out of a Lincoln Continental, cut emissions by 80%, and double the horsepower. Does the car business have the guts to follow him?

*snort* No.

Guys like this show us what's really possible, and it's so much more than we're reassured as the Big 3 (I've noticed a few instances of them being called the 'Detroit 3' lately - is that due to loss of market share, or have I just missed that nickname in the past?) plod toward yesterday's ideas.

Seriously, biodiesel Hummers with twice the horsepower and half the emissions? I'd have to stop giving them all snarky smirks.

UPDATE: A friend from work forwarded this article to a GM engineer friend of his. Here's the engineer's dazzlingly insightful reply:

There is alot of people (sic) these days claiming to be genius (sic) and create a vehicle that gets 100MPG. Give our engineers one minute and they will tell you several vehicle (sic) that can do this but we did it back in the 50's (sic, but debatable). Its (sic) when you start applying all the safety features, creature comforts... government standards.... (a sic on all his ellipses, and 'damn guvm'nt!') export requirements.... corporate legal requirements.. oh and you better have a staff of lawyers.. we have several hundred on staff and half again that (sic) on retainer and they are all top of the line lawyers... this all changes the game and if you have a couple BILLION to spare we can build you anything you wish that will work in any corner of the earth under any condition (sic) and come with a 100,000 mile 10 year warranty or if you can go to a LOCAL dealer and chose one of several we have already done for you some for under $12,000 in any color or option configuration you can imagine. If you can only see what goes into these cars or if the average Joe who is knocking the big 3 could see what we do... they would have a whole new outlook and start buying American cars... there is an advantage out there for the offshore companies but the day of that advantage is soon gonna end then we will see who really has it together.

...riiiight.

This man was last seen in the middle of the Detroit River on a sinking boat, claiming it was all the water's fault and that really the boat was fine anyway and we should all just shut the hell up and buy boats just like his.

I guess I'm the average Joe of whom he is speaking, though I remain unconvinced by his biting argument. The most obvious and telling point that he neglected to comment on was that much of the article refers to Hummers, which GM still (for now) owns, and which presumably are still safe, unless Mr. Goodwin is in the habit of cutting out the seatbelts to make room for his supplemental hydrogen tanks. Whatever. Look, though I say a lot of bad things about those big, stupid dinosaurs, I really do hope they evolve into leaner, sabre-toothed versions of their former selves. It would be good for the car industry, Detroit, and the country. If the above retort is any indicator of the general attitude in their hollowed (not sic) halls, though, I have serious doubts about whether they will. Seriously, click away from this paltry blog and read that Motorhead Messiah article - it's fun and inspiring.

UPDATE: Neil Young test 'drove' his Lincoln - check it out.