Politics and Markets can be a dangerous mix
Hillary sounds off on markets and China
Clip here:
Clinton sounds the China alarm as ’08 issue - Hillary Clinton News - MSNBC.com
Hints of Capital Controls on Thursday ... may have helped spook the markets.
Background
Back in the fall of 1987, the credit markets were getting nervous over James Baker jawboning the Europeans over currencies.
When asked what would happen in the off chance of a "market meltdown, the "wet behind the ears" head of the SEC, David Ruter, suggested that the markets might have to be shut down temporarily.
Well, the best way to describe this is to imagine that you are in line for movie tickets and they announce that "in case of fire, we'll lock the doors"
Time to go to the bar instead.
Now we have Hilllary, front runner for her party for President, suggesting that she could support Capital Controls.
Foreign capital comes to the US Markets because they are the safest, deepest and most liquid in the world. The American economy is strong and there are places to put your capital to work.
If you are a manager in China, where do you want to put your profits for "safe keeping"? France? Uganda? ... China? Esp. if you know that the Chinese financial system is on shaking grounds.
Today in Investor's Business Daily stock analysis and business news :
"But Clinton remains unrepentant. Faced with what she called "a slow erosion of our own economic sovereignty" from U.S. dependence on foreign debt and trade, she would restrict trade and perhaps limit access to currency for trade and investment.
This is almost unbelievable foolishness. Capital controls have been tried before — most recently in Brazil, Russia, Malaysia, Thailand, Chile and Colombia — and almost invariably with tragic economic results.
Clinton misunderstands that what's at stake here is not "debt" per se; it's foreign investment. As the chart shows, foreign, non-government holdings in our economy have soared from roughly $500 billion in 1982 to nearly $12 trillion today. That surge has created literally millions of jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars in incomes and tax revenues.
Over the same period, U.S. household wealth has exploded from $10.6 trillion to $54.1 trillion, and the economy has tripled to $13.2 trillion. This is a remarkable, unparalleled success story.
But if capital and trade controls are imposed, investors will flee, foreign trade will shrink and jobs will be lost. A study by economist Kristin Forbes of MIT found that U.S. multinational companies cut investments in foreign markets 13% to 16% if they suspect capital controls would be used.
Sadly, Clinton's brainchild seems to be the essence of Democratic policy these days — glib, shallow and showing little grasp of even basic economic principles.
As our friends at NRO Online remind us, some in the party — including Sen. Clinton — hold up Sen. Byron Dorgan's proposal to slap restrictions on the economy whenever the trade deficit exceeds 5% of GDP or foreign ownership of U.S. bonds tops 25%.
This is a recipe for stagnation, not growth. It would weaken the dollar, confuse our trading partners, wreak havoc in our markets and reverse 60 years of postwar prosperity. It deserves to be swatted down at once."
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Friday, March 02, 2007
When it rains ... it pours
No blogging for a while, not much else other than repairs and backups
Wed night, laptop got dropped (nudged?) to floor - right on the power adapter fitting.
Thurs was researching repairs, starting on backups, but, if I held my toung just right, the power worked, and we were OK.
Then power goes out - OK, that happens, esp with late winter storm.
Divert to setting up generator, making the house "happy" ... but of course no internet connection.
Later in the evening, we get cable back on, and after that, we're back online.
Good
This AM, no power to the battery, scramble for a couple of hours with backups, arrange for HD to be swapped to firewire case, head to town (will in a few min.)
Hopefully we saved enough (lost some spreadsheets on old desktop which shut off instead of taking orders to fall asleep ... my fault for not saving files)
Soooo
We'll throw away most of the rest of today, likely will do work-arounds for the next several.
Good thing there are only about 1/2 dozen projects up in the air.
Better thing that I've been storing files online and working on some projects via online tools (stikipad etc)
Later...
Wed night, laptop got dropped (nudged?) to floor - right on the power adapter fitting.
Thurs was researching repairs, starting on backups, but, if I held my toung just right, the power worked, and we were OK.
Then power goes out - OK, that happens, esp with late winter storm.
Divert to setting up generator, making the house "happy" ... but of course no internet connection.
Later in the evening, we get cable back on, and after that, we're back online.
Good
This AM, no power to the battery, scramble for a couple of hours with backups, arrange for HD to be swapped to firewire case, head to town (will in a few min.)
Hopefully we saved enough (lost some spreadsheets on old desktop which shut off instead of taking orders to fall asleep ... my fault for not saving files)
Soooo
We'll throw away most of the rest of today, likely will do work-arounds for the next several.
Good thing there are only about 1/2 dozen projects up in the air.
Better thing that I've been storing files online and working on some projects via online tools (stikipad etc)
Later...
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
What Day is it?
Nobody thought of this?
Defense Tech: That Deaf, Dumb, and Blind Jet . . .
At $125-135Million apiece, Raptors (F22) gets confused at the International Date Line on first deployment to the "Far East" ... whoops!
Flight has to make it's way back to Hawaii
Defense Tech: That Deaf, Dumb, and Blind Jet . . .
At $125-135Million apiece, Raptors (F22) gets confused at the International Date Line on first deployment to the "Far East" ... whoops!
Flight has to make it's way back to Hawaii
Location location location
Open your store in a red light district?
Second Life Opens For Business - Technology News by InformationWeek:
"Toyota, Circuit City, Dell, Sears, and Adidas have set up shop in the Second Life virtual world. But their stores are empty. Can businesses find a place with any real-world payback in this fantasyland of overindulgence?"
Second Life Opens For Business - Technology News by InformationWeek:
"Toyota, Circuit City, Dell, Sears, and Adidas have set up shop in the Second Life virtual world. But their stores are empty. Can businesses find a place with any real-world payback in this fantasyland of overindulgence?"
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Good little summary ... Stewart Brand
Was follower of Stewart many many years ago, via Whole Earth Catalog, later, CoEvolution Quarterly
Got to know him via PCForum
Various conversations, and now a sometimes contributor to Long Now Foundation
Good Stuff
Stewart Brand - John Tierney - An Early Environmentalist, Embracing New Heresies - New York Times
Got to know him via PCForum
Various conversations, and now a sometimes contributor to Long Now Foundation
Good Stuff
Stewart Brand - John Tierney - An Early Environmentalist, Embracing New Heresies - New York Times
Banana Peel
Maybe the Carry Trade???
U.S. Home - WSJ.com:
"The Dow industrials sank 416.02 points, or 3.3%, to 12216.24, their worst one-day decline since Sept. 17, 2001. The sudden retreat, triggered by a wrenching 8.8% selloff in Shanghai overnight, is forcing global investors to reevaluate their insatiable appetite for risky investments. A dramatic 200-point tumble at 3 p.m., the result of a glitch in the mechanism that calculates the average, marked one of the fastest drops in the Dow industrials' history."
U.S. Home - WSJ.com:
"The Dow industrials sank 416.02 points, or 3.3%, to 12216.24, their worst one-day decline since Sept. 17, 2001. The sudden retreat, triggered by a wrenching 8.8% selloff in Shanghai overnight, is forcing global investors to reevaluate their insatiable appetite for risky investments. A dramatic 200-point tumble at 3 p.m., the result of a glitch in the mechanism that calculates the average, marked one of the fastest drops in the Dow industrials' history."
Monday, February 26, 2007
Horizon
Moments after 6PM
View across the lake
Plenty of snow on the ice now, at least a foot
May have to pull out the skis after all
View across the lake
Plenty of snow on the ice now, at least a foot
May have to pull out the skis after all
Snow Sh_t Sherlock
We got some snow...
Didn't start till about noon Sunday, and wasn't all that bad ...
By 5:30 I'd decided to snow-blow the drive, maybe 6 inches.
Both Shirley and I had things scheduled today.
Got up around 5:30 to check ... yup, more snow.
At least another 6 inches.
Here's a shot down the road, unblown/unplowed.
(all plowed by the time I got home around 5:30 PM
But not bad, temps in 30's snow moved well, not all cold and fluffy
Didn't start till about noon Sunday, and wasn't all that bad ...
By 5:30 I'd decided to snow-blow the drive, maybe 6 inches.
Both Shirley and I had things scheduled today.
Got up around 5:30 to check ... yup, more snow.
At least another 6 inches.
Here's a shot down the road, unblown/unplowed.
(all plowed by the time I got home around 5:30 PM
But not bad, temps in 30's snow moved well, not all cold and fluffy
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Rather pissy blog
Ran across this while researching info on spelt, hulled wheats and the like for Purity foods
Did lead me to some useful info
Did lead me to some useful info
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Speed Limit
Tom Walsh in the "Freep"
"Michigan, in today's time of crisis, has a prime opportunity to fix itself, to move beyond the annual migraine of budget deficit and blame game toward a sane tax structure and a strategy to make the state an economic leader again, instead of the industrial backwater it is fast becoming."
More here:
Michigan's budget crisis means we have to live like we're No. 25:
MEA and Prison Union have to change tune
"Michigan, in today's time of crisis, has a prime opportunity to fix itself, to move beyond the annual migraine of budget deficit and blame game toward a sane tax structure and a strategy to make the state an economic leader again, instead of the industrial backwater it is fast becoming."
More here:
Michigan's budget crisis means we have to live like we're No. 25:
MEA and Prison Union have to change tune
Friday, February 23, 2007
Stranger in a Strange Land
"First, I spent the requisite time learning to move around and interact. I also wasted a good 15 minutes tweaking my "Boy Next Door" avatar beyond the default 85% gay anime life-study. Most of those minutes went to rectifying a mysterious bald spot that kept appearing whenever I adjusted my hairstyle. At the end of this process, my avatar was less gay, though somehow I felt that I, myself, had become more gay."
Read on:
HYPEWATCH: A tour of Second Life's big empty - Valleywag
Read on:
HYPEWATCH: A tour of Second Life's big empty - Valleywag
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Spring's still away's off
Following came in my email today...
Good enough to post.
To which I add Jim Harrison: :
"...and finally, love the detour. Take the longest route between two points, since the journey is the thing, a notion to which, contaminated by the Zen-fascist slogans of advertising (“just do it!”), we all pay lip service but few of us indulge."
---
Four wheels move the body. Two wheels move the soul.
Most motorcycle problems are caused by the nut that connects the handlebars to the saddle.
Life may begin at 30, but it doesn't get real interesting until about 90 mph!
You start the game of life with a full pot o' luck and an empty pot o' experience... The object is
to fill the pot of experience before you empty the pot of luck.
If you wait, all that happens is that you get older.
Midnight bugs taste just as bad as noontime bugs.
Saddlebags can never hold everything you want, but they CAN hold everything you need.
It takes more love to share the saddle than it does to share the bed.
The only good view of a thunderstorm is in your rearview mirror.
Never be afraid to slow down.
Don't ride so late into the night that you sleep through the sunrise.
Sometimes it takes a whole tankful of fuel before you can think straight.
Riding faster than everyone else only guarantees you'll ride alone.
Never hesitate to ride past the last street light at the edge of town.
Never do less than forty miles before breakfast.
If you don't ride in the rain, you don't ride.
A bike on the road is worth two in the shed.
Respect the person who has seen the dark side of motorcycling and lived.
Young riders pick a destination and go... Old riders pick a direction and go.
A good mechanic will let you watch without charging you for it.
Sometimes the fastest way to get there is to stop for the night.
Always back your bike into the curb, and sit where you can see it.
Work to ride & ride to work.
Whatever it is, it's better in the wind.
Two-lane blacktop isn't a highway - it's an attitude.
When you look down the road it seems to never end - but you’d better believe it does!
Winter is Nature's way of telling you to polish.
Keep your bike in good repair: Motorcycle boots are NOT comfortable for walking.
People are like motorcycles: each is customized a bit differently.
Sometimes, the best communication happens when you're on separate bikes.
Good coffee should be indistinguishable from 50-weight motor oil.
The best alarm clock is sunshine on chrome.
The twisties - not the superslabs -separate the riders from the squids.
When you're riding lead, don't spit.
A friend is someone who'll get out of bed at 2:00 am to drive his pickup to the middle of nowhere to
get you when you're broken down.
Catching a yellowjacket in your shirt at 70 mph can double your vocabulary.
If you want to get somewhere before sundown, you can't stop at every tavern.
There's something ugly about a NEW bike on a trailer.
Don't lead the pack if you don't know where you're going.
Practice wrenching on your own bike.
Everyone crashes. Some get back on. Some don't. Some can't.
Don't argue with an 18-wheeler.
Never be ashamed to unlearn an old habit.
A good, long ride can clear your mind, restore your faith, and use up a lot of fuel.
If you can't get it going with bungee cords and electrician's tape, it's serious.
If you ride like there's no tomorrow, there won't be.
Bikes parked out front mean good chicken-fried steak inside.
There are drunk riders. There are old riders. There are NO old, drunk riders.
Thin leather looks good in the bar, but it won't save your butt from road rash if you go down.
The best modifications cannot be seen from the outside.
Always replace the cheapest parts first.
You can forget what you do for a living when your knees are in the breeze.
Patience is the ability to keep your motor idling.
Only a biker knows why a dog sticks his head out of a car window.
There are two types of people in this world, people who ride motorcycles and people who
wish they could ride motorcycles.
Never try to race an old geezer; he may have one more gear than you.
Gray-haired riders don't get that way from pure luck.
Good enough to post.
To which I add Jim Harrison: :
"...and finally, love the detour. Take the longest route between two points, since the journey is the thing, a notion to which, contaminated by the Zen-fascist slogans of advertising (“just do it!”), we all pay lip service but few of us indulge."
---
Four wheels move the body. Two wheels move the soul.
Most motorcycle problems are caused by the nut that connects the handlebars to the saddle.
Life may begin at 30, but it doesn't get real interesting until about 90 mph!
You start the game of life with a full pot o' luck and an empty pot o' experience... The object is
to fill the pot of experience before you empty the pot of luck.
If you wait, all that happens is that you get older.
Midnight bugs taste just as bad as noontime bugs.
Saddlebags can never hold everything you want, but they CAN hold everything you need.
It takes more love to share the saddle than it does to share the bed.
The only good view of a thunderstorm is in your rearview mirror.
Never be afraid to slow down.
Don't ride so late into the night that you sleep through the sunrise.
Sometimes it takes a whole tankful of fuel before you can think straight.
Riding faster than everyone else only guarantees you'll ride alone.
Never hesitate to ride past the last street light at the edge of town.
Never do less than forty miles before breakfast.
If you don't ride in the rain, you don't ride.
A bike on the road is worth two in the shed.
Respect the person who has seen the dark side of motorcycling and lived.
Young riders pick a destination and go... Old riders pick a direction and go.
A good mechanic will let you watch without charging you for it.
Sometimes the fastest way to get there is to stop for the night.
Always back your bike into the curb, and sit where you can see it.
Work to ride & ride to work.
Whatever it is, it's better in the wind.
Two-lane blacktop isn't a highway - it's an attitude.
When you look down the road it seems to never end - but you’d better believe it does!
Winter is Nature's way of telling you to polish.
Keep your bike in good repair: Motorcycle boots are NOT comfortable for walking.
People are like motorcycles: each is customized a bit differently.
Sometimes, the best communication happens when you're on separate bikes.
Good coffee should be indistinguishable from 50-weight motor oil.
The best alarm clock is sunshine on chrome.
The twisties - not the superslabs -separate the riders from the squids.
When you're riding lead, don't spit.
A friend is someone who'll get out of bed at 2:00 am to drive his pickup to the middle of nowhere to
get you when you're broken down.
Catching a yellowjacket in your shirt at 70 mph can double your vocabulary.
If you want to get somewhere before sundown, you can't stop at every tavern.
There's something ugly about a NEW bike on a trailer.
Don't lead the pack if you don't know where you're going.
Practice wrenching on your own bike.
Everyone crashes. Some get back on. Some don't. Some can't.
Don't argue with an 18-wheeler.
Never be ashamed to unlearn an old habit.
A good, long ride can clear your mind, restore your faith, and use up a lot of fuel.
If you can't get it going with bungee cords and electrician's tape, it's serious.
If you ride like there's no tomorrow, there won't be.
Bikes parked out front mean good chicken-fried steak inside.
There are drunk riders. There are old riders. There are NO old, drunk riders.
Thin leather looks good in the bar, but it won't save your butt from road rash if you go down.
The best modifications cannot be seen from the outside.
Always replace the cheapest parts first.
You can forget what you do for a living when your knees are in the breeze.
Patience is the ability to keep your motor idling.
Only a biker knows why a dog sticks his head out of a car window.
There are two types of people in this world, people who ride motorcycles and people who
wish they could ride motorcycles.
Never try to race an old geezer; he may have one more gear than you.
Gray-haired riders don't get that way from pure luck.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Goodbye Free Lunch
BOJ Moves to Raise Rates to 0.5% - WSJ.com:
Beginning of the end of "Carry Trade"
Carry (investment) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
"The term carry trade without further modification refers to currency carry trade: investors borrow low-yielding currencies and lend high-yielding ones. It tends to correlate with global financial and exchange-rate stability, and retracts in use during global liquidity shortages."
Beginning of the end of "Carry Trade"
Carry (investment) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
"The term carry trade without further modification refers to currency carry trade: investors borrow low-yielding currencies and lend high-yielding ones. It tends to correlate with global financial and exchange-rate stability, and retracts in use during global liquidity shortages."
"Specifically, the governor said the BOJ wanted to quench expectations that Japanese rates would stay very low for very long, which might cause them to take "extreme positions." He said the BOJ had in mind, among other aspects of global markets, the so-called "carry trade," where investors borrow money at Japan's low rates and invest it elsewhere where returns are higher. Mr. Fukui said such borrowing could present a risk to the global economy if unwound suddenly."
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Aaaannnnnaaa (to be drawn out like Brando in Streetcar ..."Stella")
Brando:
(American Rhetoric: Movie Speech from A Streetcar Named Desire -:
"Kowalski: Hey, Stellllaaaa!!! Hey, Stellaaaa!!")
Following Covers the "news" so much better than I could.
Deus Ex Malcontent: And Now, an Apology in the Form of an Open Letter to America
And funny!
(American Rhetoric: Movie Speech from A Streetcar Named Desire -:
"Kowalski: Hey, Stellllaaaa!!! Hey, Stellaaaa!!")
Following Covers the "news" so much better than I could.
Deus Ex Malcontent: And Now, an Apology in the Form of an Open Letter to America
And funny!
Monday, February 19, 2007
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Oink
Sunday, the 18th is Chinese New Year, the Year of the Boar (pig), and looking at the astrological calendar(Chinese Year Chart), I guess it's my year (along with several million others.
I would object to the translation "simple minded" ... preferring something like broad minded or polymath, interested in many things rather than just a few.
Astrology - Chinese Zodiac - Pig:
"People born in the year of the pig are steady and resolute in doing things, and honest and warm-hearted to other people. Competent and persistent as they are, they will spare no efforts in fulfilling any job assigned to them.
Though simple-minded, they always have their own opinions. They hope that everything will be peaceful and everyone happy. They can get along well with others because of their leniency and generosity, and they have patience in perfecting themselves and fulfilling their jobs, which makes them good teachers. However, they will fly into a rage when forced to, but they never harbor a grudge and stab another person in the back.
They are always faithful to friends and set a high value on friendship. They have an interest in giving and participating in parties. Besides, they are good peacemakers in others' eyes because of their honesty and trustworthiness."
I would object to the translation "simple minded" ... preferring something like broad minded or polymath, interested in many things rather than just a few.Astrology - Chinese Zodiac - Pig:
"People born in the year of the pig are steady and resolute in doing things, and honest and warm-hearted to other people. Competent and persistent as they are, they will spare no efforts in fulfilling any job assigned to them.
Though simple-minded, they always have their own opinions. They hope that everything will be peaceful and everyone happy. They can get along well with others because of their leniency and generosity, and they have patience in perfecting themselves and fulfilling their jobs, which makes them good teachers. However, they will fly into a rage when forced to, but they never harbor a grudge and stab another person in the back.
They are always faithful to friends and set a high value on friendship. They have an interest in giving and participating in parties. Besides, they are good peacemakers in others' eyes because of their honesty and trustworthiness."
Friday, February 16, 2007
Older? ... nah, just better
I'll start off with a message I got from a contact on topic of blogging:
"On another note. I recall that you are retired. I think I have that right? I have an idea working at the Times about writing a piece about retirees who blog. I'm not looking for "Hey, Grandpa or Grandma is blogging. Ain't that cool." I'm looking for examples of retirees who've become serious bloggers as a way to enhance their lives, add their experience and wisdom to their professions, stay current, and stay engaged in a way that was rarely possible previous to the advance of consumer generated content and social media. I wonder if you are an example of this and whether you can help identify other talented, wise, energetic, and serious bloggers who fit the profile?"
(To avoid any confusion, I have not "retired" ... still busy with many endeavors)
Of course, I immediately thought of Doc Searls.
NO Not that he's old, hell, we're only about a month apart, but because he knows so damn many bloggers.
His lead : Ronni Bennett
But this whole topic go me to thinking.
What is retirement, and how does/might it apply to us "Boomers"?
Big 6 Oh coming up for me this year.
Some/many will take the traditional "retirement" path, but :
a) as for myself, I find that I still tend to "think young" ... that may change, maybe as Ronni thinks, it's denial of change, but I'm not so sure.
Some aches and pains which modify my behavior a bit, but not all that much... yet.
Hearing is worse, but I'll accept that.
I use to say I was 50 going on 20, now maybe approaching 60 going on 35 (40?)
Note the ratio - maybe a sign of age.
b) patterning on the American Express ads with Dennis Hopper, this generation has always tried to do things "different"... maybe we'll be taking on "age" with a verve and passion for life and living. Therefore not "retiring"
c) what will be the accepted age of "retirement" as we tend to be healthier? This lends to the whole "Social Security" debate ... what is the right age to consider?
In other words, if one is healthy and productive well into their 60's - 70's and beyond, what is "retirement"?
Better nutrition, exercise, not to mention medical advances are changing the whole dynamic of demographics.
Then, this afternoon, I got back to my WSJournal and spotted a piece on "Aging Brains":The Upside of Aging "New research finds some brain functions actually improve with age. Our reporter on delayed retirement and how to stay sharp."
Excerpts:
"The aging brain is subject to a dreary litany of changes. It shrinks, Swiss cheese-like holes grow, connections between neurons become sparser, blood flow and oxygen supply fall. That leads to trouble with short-term memory and rapidly switching attention, among other problems. And that's in a healthy brain.
But it's not all doom and gloom. An emerging body of research shows that a surprising array of mental functions hold up well into old age, while others actually get better. Vocabulary improves, as do other verbal abilities such as facility with synonyms and antonyms. Older brains are packed with more so-called expert knowledge -- information relevant to your occupation or hobby. (Older bridge enthusiasts have at their mental beck-and-call many more bids and responses.) They also store more "cognitive templates," or mental outlines of generic problems and solutions that can be tapped when confronting new problems."
---
Discoveries of brain functions that hold up, or even improve, through the decades could affect corporate and public policy. As baby boomers age, many are resisting mandatory retirement. In January, a special committee of the New York State Bar Association recommended that law firms abandon the practice. Air-traffic controllers are asking federal agencies to reconsider the requirement that they retire at age 55, and the Federal Aviation Administration in January proposed pushing back the mandatory retirement age for commercial pilots, which is currently 60.
The emerging neuroscience is on their side. One of the most robust cognitive abilities is semantic memory, which is recollection of facts and figures. "Semantic memory is relatively resistant to the effects of aging," says psychology professor Arthur Kramer of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Semantic memory includes vocabulary, which increases with age so reliably (at least in people who continue reading) that a younger person should never challenge a sharp 75-year-old to a crossword puzzle.
---
The biggest benefit of an older brain is that fewer real-life challenges require deliberate, effortful problem-solving. Where once it took hours of methodical scrutiny to understand a prospectus, for instance, older lawyers and investment bankers can zoom in on crucial sections and fit them into what they already know.
Elkhonon Goldberg, a neuropsychologist who has a private practice and is a professor at New York University School of Medicine, finds that he can also grasp the essence of data presented in scientific papers more readily than he once could, something that more than makes up for losses in other mental realms. "I am not nearly as good at laborious, grinding, focused mental computations," he says, "but then again, I do not experience the need to resort to them nearly as often."
While younger brains solve problems step-by-step, older brains call on cognitive templates, those generic outlines of a problem and a solution that worked before. It's the feeling you get when you see that a new situation or problem belongs to a class of situations or problems you have encountered before, with the result that you don't have to attack them methodically. Yes, older people forget little things, and may have occasional attention lapses, but their cognitive templates are so rich that they more than hold their own. Their brains can keep up even with a diminished supply of blood and oxygen.
---
The benefits that come to the mind and brain with age extend beyond thinking. They also include a greater ability to put yourself in another person's mind, empathizing and understanding his thought processes -- emotional wisdom...A 2006 study of 250 people ranging in age from adolescence to their late 70s documented for the first time "positive changes in the emotional brain," according to the Society for Neuroscience, which publishes the Journal of Neuroscience. In the experiment, Leanne Williams of the University of Sydney showed the volunteers pictures of faces expressing emotions. Using fMRI brain imaging, it was found that circuits in "medial prefrontal" areas -- right behind the forehead -- were more active in older people than younger people when processing negative emotional expressions. The greater activity suggests better control of reactions to other people's anger, fear and the like. This greater sensitivity seems to translate into decreasing neuroticism, and greater emotional equanimity.
That doesn't mean older brains flatline when it comes to sensitivity. Instead, they often show a keen emotional intelligence and ability to judge character. Elderly volunteers given a list of behaviors that describe a made-up person ignored irrelevant information (favorite color, place of birth) when asked to judge the person's character and focused on revealing traits better than younger people did, according to research by Thomas Hess, a professor of psychology at North Carolina State University. They were more likely to infer correctly that the person was dishonest, kind or intelligent -- a skill that is arguably more important than the ability to memorize a list of words in a lab experiment.
Wow ... was that timely or what?
So, what lies ahead?
I'm just as curious as I have been for years, maybe a bit more reflective, but also am engaged in plenty of projects. With a broader view, maybe even more than in years past, I'm continuing to look to integrate and cross reference various threads, firms, connections and relationships, to see patterns and seek to enhance and build upon positive connections.
"On another note. I recall that you are retired. I think I have that right? I have an idea working at the Times about writing a piece about retirees who blog. I'm not looking for "Hey, Grandpa or Grandma is blogging. Ain't that cool." I'm looking for examples of retirees who've become serious bloggers as a way to enhance their lives, add their experience and wisdom to their professions, stay current, and stay engaged in a way that was rarely possible previous to the advance of consumer generated content and social media. I wonder if you are an example of this and whether you can help identify other talented, wise, energetic, and serious bloggers who fit the profile?"
(To avoid any confusion, I have not "retired" ... still busy with many endeavors)
Of course, I immediately thought of Doc Searls.
NO Not that he's old, hell, we're only about a month apart, but because he knows so damn many bloggers.
His lead : Ronni Bennett
But this whole topic go me to thinking.
What is retirement, and how does/might it apply to us "Boomers"?
Big 6 Oh coming up for me this year.
Some/many will take the traditional "retirement" path, but :
a) as for myself, I find that I still tend to "think young" ... that may change, maybe as Ronni thinks, it's denial of change, but I'm not so sure.
Some aches and pains which modify my behavior a bit, but not all that much... yet.
Hearing is worse, but I'll accept that.
I use to say I was 50 going on 20, now maybe approaching 60 going on 35 (40?)
Note the ratio - maybe a sign of age.
b) patterning on the American Express ads with Dennis Hopper, this generation has always tried to do things "different"... maybe we'll be taking on "age" with a verve and passion for life and living. Therefore not "retiring"
c) what will be the accepted age of "retirement" as we tend to be healthier? This lends to the whole "Social Security" debate ... what is the right age to consider?
In other words, if one is healthy and productive well into their 60's - 70's and beyond, what is "retirement"?
Better nutrition, exercise, not to mention medical advances are changing the whole dynamic of demographics.
Then, this afternoon, I got back to my WSJournal and spotted a piece on "Aging Brains":The Upside of Aging "New research finds some brain functions actually improve with age. Our reporter on delayed retirement and how to stay sharp."
Excerpts:
"The aging brain is subject to a dreary litany of changes. It shrinks, Swiss cheese-like holes grow, connections between neurons become sparser, blood flow and oxygen supply fall. That leads to trouble with short-term memory and rapidly switching attention, among other problems. And that's in a healthy brain.
But it's not all doom and gloom. An emerging body of research shows that a surprising array of mental functions hold up well into old age, while others actually get better. Vocabulary improves, as do other verbal abilities such as facility with synonyms and antonyms. Older brains are packed with more so-called expert knowledge -- information relevant to your occupation or hobby. (Older bridge enthusiasts have at their mental beck-and-call many more bids and responses.) They also store more "cognitive templates," or mental outlines of generic problems and solutions that can be tapped when confronting new problems."
---
Discoveries of brain functions that hold up, or even improve, through the decades could affect corporate and public policy. As baby boomers age, many are resisting mandatory retirement. In January, a special committee of the New York State Bar Association recommended that law firms abandon the practice. Air-traffic controllers are asking federal agencies to reconsider the requirement that they retire at age 55, and the Federal Aviation Administration in January proposed pushing back the mandatory retirement age for commercial pilots, which is currently 60.
The emerging neuroscience is on their side. One of the most robust cognitive abilities is semantic memory, which is recollection of facts and figures. "Semantic memory is relatively resistant to the effects of aging," says psychology professor Arthur Kramer of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Semantic memory includes vocabulary, which increases with age so reliably (at least in people who continue reading) that a younger person should never challenge a sharp 75-year-old to a crossword puzzle.
---
The biggest benefit of an older brain is that fewer real-life challenges require deliberate, effortful problem-solving. Where once it took hours of methodical scrutiny to understand a prospectus, for instance, older lawyers and investment bankers can zoom in on crucial sections and fit them into what they already know.
Elkhonon Goldberg, a neuropsychologist who has a private practice and is a professor at New York University School of Medicine, finds that he can also grasp the essence of data presented in scientific papers more readily than he once could, something that more than makes up for losses in other mental realms. "I am not nearly as good at laborious, grinding, focused mental computations," he says, "but then again, I do not experience the need to resort to them nearly as often."
While younger brains solve problems step-by-step, older brains call on cognitive templates, those generic outlines of a problem and a solution that worked before. It's the feeling you get when you see that a new situation or problem belongs to a class of situations or problems you have encountered before, with the result that you don't have to attack them methodically. Yes, older people forget little things, and may have occasional attention lapses, but their cognitive templates are so rich that they more than hold their own. Their brains can keep up even with a diminished supply of blood and oxygen.
---
The benefits that come to the mind and brain with age extend beyond thinking. They also include a greater ability to put yourself in another person's mind, empathizing and understanding his thought processes -- emotional wisdom...A 2006 study of 250 people ranging in age from adolescence to their late 70s documented for the first time "positive changes in the emotional brain," according to the Society for Neuroscience, which publishes the Journal of Neuroscience. In the experiment, Leanne Williams of the University of Sydney showed the volunteers pictures of faces expressing emotions. Using fMRI brain imaging, it was found that circuits in "medial prefrontal" areas -- right behind the forehead -- were more active in older people than younger people when processing negative emotional expressions. The greater activity suggests better control of reactions to other people's anger, fear and the like. This greater sensitivity seems to translate into decreasing neuroticism, and greater emotional equanimity.
That doesn't mean older brains flatline when it comes to sensitivity. Instead, they often show a keen emotional intelligence and ability to judge character. Elderly volunteers given a list of behaviors that describe a made-up person ignored irrelevant information (favorite color, place of birth) when asked to judge the person's character and focused on revealing traits better than younger people did, according to research by Thomas Hess, a professor of psychology at North Carolina State University. They were more likely to infer correctly that the person was dishonest, kind or intelligent -- a skill that is arguably more important than the ability to memorize a list of words in a lab experiment.
Wow ... was that timely or what?
So, what lies ahead?
I'm just as curious as I have been for years, maybe a bit more reflective, but also am engaged in plenty of projects. With a broader view, maybe even more than in years past, I'm continuing to look to integrate and cross reference various threads, firms, connections and relationships, to see patterns and seek to enhance and build upon positive connections.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
60's
Is this what we get to look forward to as "Children of the 60's" reach their 60's?
ValleyWag :
Philip Rosedale compared Second Life to a drug-induced high, but he's not the first to make that comparison. From Adam Pasick's interview with Linden Lab chairman Mitch Kapor:I do think Second Life can be a mind altering experience -- Second Life, SL, LSD ... maybe not an accident! When you're in Second Life and you're having a mixed reality event
Maybe Mitch just got some bad acid?
ValleyWag :
What are they putting in the water over at Linden Lab?
Philip Rosedale compared Second Life to a drug-induced high, but he's not the first to make that comparison. From Adam Pasick's interview with Linden Lab chairman Mitch Kapor:I do think Second Life can be a mind altering experience -- Second Life, SL, LSD ... maybe not an accident! When you're in Second Life and you're having a mixed reality event Maybe Mitch just got some bad acid?
Zombie Avatars?
Visions of John Carpenter's "Night of the Living Dead"
or would it be an Avatar Statuary Garden?
OVERCOUNTS: Second Life's absentee population - Valleywag:
"As any illusionist will tell you, the trick is mainly in getting the audience to look at the wrong thing. In Linden's case, they want you to think that cumulative users matters when it doesn't. A new user won't care one whit that, as of last year, 1,422,846 people had tried Second Life. What they want to know is how many of those people will still be around to interact with now?
This is the question the press should be asking -- 'How many of those users from 2006 have logged in recently?' Linden won't answer, of course, but it might be interesting to hear how they square the invisibility of the one population number that actually affects user experience with their stated goal of transparency and openness. "
or would it be an Avatar Statuary Garden?
OVERCOUNTS: Second Life's absentee population - Valleywag:
"As any illusionist will tell you, the trick is mainly in getting the audience to look at the wrong thing. In Linden's case, they want you to think that cumulative users matters when it doesn't. A new user won't care one whit that, as of last year, 1,422,846 people had tried Second Life. What they want to know is how many of those people will still be around to interact with now?
This is the question the press should be asking -- 'How many of those users from 2006 have logged in recently?' Linden won't answer, of course, but it might be interesting to hear how they square the invisibility of the one population number that actually affects user experience with their stated goal of transparency and openness. "
Starry Starry Morn
With a nod to Joni Mitchel ...
Good morning for hot tub.
High single digits, clear skies, haven't had that for a while. Late moonrise.
Caught a couple satellites, couple meteors, on particularly nice, covering much of the view angle.
Refreshing, now for a bit of coffee
Good morning for hot tub.
High single digits, clear skies, haven't had that for a while. Late moonrise.
Caught a couple satellites, couple meteors, on particularly nice, covering much of the view angle.
Refreshing, now for a bit of coffee
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Whoa ... not so fast
To paraphrase Al Gore : "An Inconvenient Report"
IPCC report on Climate - New York Times:
"In his film “An Inconvenient Truth,” Mr. Gore has done a brilliant job of reaching the masses by combining a sober science lecture with a horror movie: gigantic ice sheets quickly melting, seas rapidly swamping vast areas, hurricanes relentlessly battering the coasts, the Gulf Stream stopping and plunging Europe into an ice age.
But there are two problems with this approach. One is that scaring people doesn’t necessarily make their political leaders do anything substantive.
The other problem is that most of the horror-movie scenarios are looking less and less plausible. Climate change will probably occur not with a bang but with a long, slow whimper, as you can see in the new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."
and about the graphics right out of Hollywood ...
"The report concludes that it’s “very likely” that humans are now the main factor warming the climate. But even as the panel’s scientists are becoming surer of the problem, and warning of grim consequences this century and beyond, they’re eschewing crowd-thrilling catastrophes. Since the last I.P.C.C. report, six years ago, they haven’t raised the estimates of future temperatures and sea levels.
IPCC report on Climate - New York Times:
"In his film “An Inconvenient Truth,” Mr. Gore has done a brilliant job of reaching the masses by combining a sober science lecture with a horror movie: gigantic ice sheets quickly melting, seas rapidly swamping vast areas, hurricanes relentlessly battering the coasts, the Gulf Stream stopping and plunging Europe into an ice age.
But there are two problems with this approach. One is that scaring people doesn’t necessarily make their political leaders do anything substantive.
The other problem is that most of the horror-movie scenarios are looking less and less plausible. Climate change will probably occur not with a bang but with a long, slow whimper, as you can see in the new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."
and about the graphics right out of Hollywood ...
"The report concludes that it’s “very likely” that humans are now the main factor warming the climate. But even as the panel’s scientists are becoming surer of the problem, and warning of grim consequences this century and beyond, they’re eschewing crowd-thrilling catastrophes. Since the last I.P.C.C. report, six years ago, they haven’t raised the estimates of future temperatures and sea levels.
While Mr. Gore’s movie shows coastlines flooded by a 20-foot rise in sea level, the report’s projections for the rise this century range from 7 inches to 23 inches. The panel says Greenland’s ice sheet will shrink and might eventually disappear, but the process could take “millennia.” The Antarctic ice sheet is projected to grow, not shrink, because of increased snowfall.
The scientists acknowledge uncertainties and worrisome new signs, like the sudden acceleration in the flow of Greenland’s glaciers several years ago. But the panel, unlike Mr. Gore, didn’t extrapolate a short-term trend into a disaster, and its caution is vindicated by a report in the current issue of Science that the flow of two of the largest glaciers abruptly decelerated last year to near the old rate."
Valentine's Week
Busy: (note that not all were directly my actions)
1) Negotiated increased ownership in Earthy.com LLC.
2) Got word that Red Cedar Technology (RCT) landed Delphi as worldwide design tool for all component-level optimization tasks, Quite a coup.
3) Working on financing for significant bump in production for Purity Foods.
4) Then today got call from party that owes a fair chunk of change in a legal settlement, wanting to move forward.
And it's only Tuesday ...
1) Negotiated increased ownership in Earthy.com LLC.
2) Got word that Red Cedar Technology (RCT) landed Delphi as worldwide design tool for all component-level optimization tasks, Quite a coup.
3) Working on financing for significant bump in production for Purity Foods.
4) Then today got call from party that owes a fair chunk of change in a legal settlement, wanting to move forward.
And it's only Tuesday ...
Hope this is right
ValleyWag on Flickr and prospects for YahooPhoto
I rather like my Flickr, and would not be pleased if it went away
Time to upgrade this from rumor to unannounced fact -- that's our bet, anyway. "Consolidation" was the word seized upon most in Yahoo exec Brad Garlinghouse's "Peanut Butter Manifesto." And consolidating the duplicate services provided by post-acquisition Flickr and Yahoo Photos makes sense. Flickr founder Stewart Butterfield denied there would be any merging, but that doesn't rule out "consolidation" by way of elimination. For the whys and wherefores, read on. When we predicted that competing products like Flickr and Yahoo Photos would be consolidated, Butterfield reassured nervous Flickr fans:
I rather like my Flickr, and would not be pleased if it went away
Yahoo Photos shutting down, Flickr triumphant?
Time to upgrade this from rumor to unannounced fact -- that's our bet, anyway. "Consolidation" was the word seized upon most in Yahoo exec Brad Garlinghouse's "Peanut Butter Manifesto." And consolidating the duplicate services provided by post-acquisition Flickr and Yahoo Photos makes sense. Flickr founder Stewart Butterfield denied there would be any merging, but that doesn't rule out "consolidation" by way of elimination. For the whys and wherefores, read on. When we predicted that competing products like Flickr and Yahoo Photos would be consolidated, Butterfield reassured nervous Flickr fans:He went on to call us out specifically:I betcha Flickr keeps going more or less on the same path (always evolving, sure, but more or less the same) for a long, long time to come.
It's interesting to hear all the different perspectives on this. ... Very different from the inside, but it's mostly stuff I can't talk about. However, I can say that I'm really, really happy about all the recent changes. Valleywag has a lot wrong (just factually wrong, but it shows up in their interpretations) so I wouldn't put a lot of stock in it. All good! And in particular, all good for Flickr and it's future :)
Monday, February 12, 2007
Cory weighs in on 2ndLife
Blast from Cory (via Valleywag):
Exporting your Linden wealth
RU Sirius interviews sci-fi writer, futurist, and Electronic Frontier Foundationer Cory Doctorow on a variety of subjects, ending with Doctorow's riff on Second Life wealth:In many ways, that in-game wealth is meaningless unless it's bankable in a system that's responsive to democratic principles. In other words, you can accumulate a lot of money in apartheid-era rand, or Soviet-era rubles, but it doesn't really mean anything because you can't really export your wealth -- because the state controls access to it. And even if you can, you can't export the source of your wealth, right?
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Coming in from Right Field
I'd take a different approach, buy on bad news, or reporting of bad conditions, lighten up on good news.
From the American Enterprise Institute:
From the American Enterprise Institute:
"Want to get rich in the American stock market? Here's some advice: Don't watch the news.
I'm not being facetious here. One of the iron laws of U.S. news reporting is that the economy gets positive reviews under Democratic presidents and negative reviews under Republican presidents.
In 2004, the Virginia-based Media Research Center (MRC) produced a stark summary of the disparity.
In 1996, Bill Clinton ran for reelection as president. The U.S. economy was doing well at the time: unemployment down to 5.2%, inflation under control at 3%, and overall growth at 2.2%. And the press reported all this good news: According to the 2004 MRC study, 85% of all major economic stories on the economy in the summer of 1996 were positive.
Eight years later, George W. Bush was running for re-election as president. The U.S. economy in 2004 did much better than in 1996: The economy grew at a 3.9% pace, while unemployment and inflation roughly matched their 1996 levels (5.4% and 2.7% respectively). Yet this time, 77% of all major media economic coverage was negative. (For the full report, see www.mediaresearch.org/realitycheck/2004/fax2004
1020.asp.) And since the 2004 election, the barrage of bad news has continued: reports of housing bubbles, warnings of an imminent collapse in the U.S. dollar, and so on.
The economist John Makin has done some interesting calculations on the consequences of the euphoria of the '90s and the persistent gloom of the '00s. As the economist who most accurately predicted the Japanese stock market crash of the late 1980s, Makin deserves attention when he assesses valuations.
Makin points out that the usual determinants of stock prices are a function of expected corporate profits and interest rates. The more we expect companies to earn, the lower we expect interest rates to be, the more we will pay for a share in a company. Based on this formula, economists calculate a "fair market value" for stocks--a base line around which they expect stocks to trade.
Between 1998 and 2000, the S&P 500 traded at a premium of some 60- 80% above fair market value: Investors, it seems, were making the mistake of believing Bill Clinton's PR--and of course it ended in tears. In the single year 2000, the S&P dropped from almost 1,600 in March to 1,300 by year end. The S&P finally hit bottom at under 800 in the fall of 2002.
Then the recovery began. Investors who disregarded the gloomy Bush-era reports from CBS and The New York Times noticed the rise in corporate profits and the reductions in interest rates. They began to buy and buy and buy--pushing the S&P past 1,400 at year end 2006.
Makin, however, points out that even at 1,400, the S&P remains some 20% below its "fair market value": "If the stocks in the S&P 500 were currently valued as they have been on average over the past 20 years, the index would be at 1,775 instead of 1,420."
Politics '08 already
Dick may be controversial, but he does seem to know the "game".
Interesting insight on '08 and prospect driven by "crowdsourcing":
more
Interesting insight on '08 and prospect driven by "crowdsourcing":
  | |
| Hillary and Rudy could wrap it up this year | |
| The nominees for the 2008 presidential race will be selected in 2007. The tempo of the new political process, driven by 24-hour cable news, Internet bloggers, conservative talk radio, and liberal NPR is so rapid that the nomination race cannot exist in stasis waiting for Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina to get around to holding their votes in early 2008. Well before they open their caucuses or polling places, this nomination, in each party, will have been decided by the national media coverage during 2007. | |
more
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Impossible
The Bush Administration working out a deal with North Korea?
Impossible
What's next, a deal with Iran? Progress in Iraq?
Doesn't the Times remember that the Bushies are bumbling saber rattling idiots?
Deal to Shut Major North Korean Nuclear Facilities Appears Closer - New York Times:
"BEIJING, Feb. 9 — North Korea and the United States appeared on Friday to be inching closer to a deal that would establish a schedule for the North to shut down and seal its main nuclear facilities within two months, in return for shipments of fuel oil from South Korea and the beginning of talks over normalization of relations with Washington.
But the top American envoy negotiating the deal here cautioned that the two sides remained stuck on “one or two” small issues.
“Nothing is agreed unless everything is agreed,” the envoy, Christopher R. Hill, an assistant secretary of state, told reporters as he returned to his hotel Friday night. “So I just want to be careful about predicting success tomorrow.”"
Impossible
What's next, a deal with Iran? Progress in Iraq?
Doesn't the Times remember that the Bushies are bumbling saber rattling idiots?
Deal to Shut Major North Korean Nuclear Facilities Appears Closer - New York Times:
"BEIJING, Feb. 9 — North Korea and the United States appeared on Friday to be inching closer to a deal that would establish a schedule for the North to shut down and seal its main nuclear facilities within two months, in return for shipments of fuel oil from South Korea and the beginning of talks over normalization of relations with Washington.
But the top American envoy negotiating the deal here cautioned that the two sides remained stuck on “one or two” small issues.
“Nothing is agreed unless everything is agreed,” the envoy, Christopher R. Hill, an assistant secretary of state, told reporters as he returned to his hotel Friday night. “So I just want to be careful about predicting success tomorrow.”"
Friday, February 09, 2007
Quotable Quotes
Spotted in Birthday ad for Tim Barr (owner of our local tavern: Art's Tavern in Glen Arbor Michigan, near the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Park):
Growing older is inevitable
Growing up is optional
Growing older is inevitable
Growing up is optional
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Whew, I thougth maybe I was just clueless
Enjoyed the first season, unsure of the second, and thought that maybe I just didn't "get it"
NYTimes : The Unseen and Unexplained, Inching Closer to the Truth
"“Lost,” on ABC tonight, is the most intriguing of all the series that traffic in the supernatural, mostly because it defies its own illogical reasoning. As the third season resumes after a three-month hiatus, nothing about the fate of the plane wreck survivors marooned on a paranormal island (or is it an archipelago?) makes much sense. But the real mystery of “Lost” is not the Dharma Initiative, the Others or why some characters are named after British philosophers (John Locke, Edmund Burke). It’s whether the writers actually have a cohesive story line that ties together all the unexplained subplots."
I thought maybe the plot was complex, set as a puzzle you had to solve... but maybe not. Maybe it's more like a long running soap opera.
"The fans of these kinds of serialized thrillers are unusually passionate and devoted, carrying a clout not unlike that of anti-abortion activists — their intensity is in some ways more powerful than their numbers. The writers of “Lost” say they pay close attention to Web sites and blogs devoted to the show, and sometimes adapt the script accordingly.
A reference to “Our Mutual Friend” surfaced at the end of the second season, a hint that the show’s executive producers identify with Charles Dickens. Yet “Lost” seems less like a sprawling, serialized 19th-century novel than like “American Idol”: the show’s writers and producers are so responsive to public reaction that viewers may as well be voting characters on and off the island by phone and text message."
NYTimes : The Unseen and Unexplained, Inching Closer to the Truth
"“Lost,” on ABC tonight, is the most intriguing of all the series that traffic in the supernatural, mostly because it defies its own illogical reasoning. As the third season resumes after a three-month hiatus, nothing about the fate of the plane wreck survivors marooned on a paranormal island (or is it an archipelago?) makes much sense. But the real mystery of “Lost” is not the Dharma Initiative, the Others or why some characters are named after British philosophers (John Locke, Edmund Burke). It’s whether the writers actually have a cohesive story line that ties together all the unexplained subplots."
I thought maybe the plot was complex, set as a puzzle you had to solve... but maybe not. Maybe it's more like a long running soap opera.
"The fans of these kinds of serialized thrillers are unusually passionate and devoted, carrying a clout not unlike that of anti-abortion activists — their intensity is in some ways more powerful than their numbers. The writers of “Lost” say they pay close attention to Web sites and blogs devoted to the show, and sometimes adapt the script accordingly.
A reference to “Our Mutual Friend” surfaced at the end of the second season, a hint that the show’s executive producers identify with Charles Dickens. Yet “Lost” seems less like a sprawling, serialized 19th-century novel than like “American Idol”: the show’s writers and producers are so responsive to public reaction that viewers may as well be voting characters on and off the island by phone and text message."
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Davos
Lots of good stuff from Peter Schwartz of Global Business Network.
Met Peter some years ago at PCForum
Some snippets:
Ethanol:
Schwartz at Davos 07: Clinate change keeps on coming:
"At the Yale reception spoke with Zedillo about the impact of the biofuels industry in the US on Mexico…pricing corn out of the tortilla market for the poor of Mexico. They may have to break NAFTA to survive the US move in ethanol."
But NYTimes says that's OK:
The Price of Corn - New York Times:
"The historical cheapness of corn has driven it into nearly every aspect of our economy, in the form, most familiarly, of corn syrup. The low price of corn over the past half-century lies at the very foundation of America’s historically (and unrealistically) low food prices.
Gratifying our two major appetites — cheap food and cheap gas — used to seem easy because both corn and oil were abundant. Cheap oil helped keep corn prices low because it cost farmers less to run their tractors and combines.
But we are entering a new dynamic now. While there has been talk recently about refining ethanol from sources other than corn, that could take a while. So at the moment what we are trying to do is gratify those appetites from the same resource: agricultural land. No matter how high prices go, what will need to change isn’t the amount of corn acreage available or even the size of the enormous harvests we are already getting. What will need to change is the size of our appetites."
Different sort of Conservative!
Schwartz at Davos 07: Non stop morning:
"Thursday morning:
The morning began at 7 with a breakfast conversation with David Cameron, the Tory leader. He joined me because of a comment I had made at the dinner the evening before. I must say I continued to be surprised by him. He intends to really lead on environmental issues in Britain. He said, “After all shouldn’t a conservative be for conservation.” "
And maybe not all is hopeless in Iraq:
Now I am in the great hall in panel on Iraq, chaired by Richard Haas, the President of the Council on foreign Relations with a Sunni and Shiite VP of Iraq. Much to our surprise the panel was modestly positive. They focused on how to get beyond the politics of exclusion. On the other hand they argued they would need peace keepers for a long time, even possibly under a UN mandate, as a last resort. They even agreed that they were not far from reaching agreement on oil revenue sharing. Graham Allison of Harvard rose to ask whether the Iraquis would really come with their own security forces. And the Sunni VP gave a fairly detailed response on how the forces would develop and intervene. And even the Shiite VP agreed strongly that Iraq would remain one country.
Interesting spin on demographics - call it "anti-aging formula"
Schwartz at Davos 07: Limiting ,population, growth, Africa and Jimmy Wales:
"My first session of the day was The Procreation Choice…about reproductive technologies and all the issues surrounding them. I was the moderator but the panel was terrific. A Columbia Professor Raymond Fisman who has studied how people choose at sperm banks (what is really desirable sperm) and how they choose dates, Prof. Robert Winston of Imperial College, London who argued that gender choice was about to become a real issue, but the rest of the issue was irrelevant. But most profound was Ingrid Mattson, the first woman head of the Islamic Society of North America. She took the conversation in a surprising direction focusing on the immigration issue and how some countries are now trying to raise their birthrates through technology to avoid becoming immigrant societies. She also pointed out that, of course, limiting reproduction has been and continues to be the most critical reproductive decision that women are making today."
And more "anti-aging"
My lunch event was on extending human lifespan. In the end there was a lot of agreement on the technology potential but the real issue they focused on was cost and associated inequities. If we can’t all live longer should anyone?
Africa in the Sino-American Century
Schwartz at Davos 07: Limiting ,population, growth, Africa and Jimmy Wales:
"Africans need to develop the strength to really negotiate with China. Richard Haas said that Africa is now part of globalization …not just an internal matter for the continent. Now linked to the world in at least ten ways…energy, HIV/AIDs, terror, developmental, trade (as negotiators), conflicts, genocide, governance, role of AU, role of external powers. He argued that there is a need for the US and China to come together on how to deal with Africa."
Europe:
Schwartz at Davos 07: Fragmenting Europe and final thoughts:
"Prof. Victor Halberstadt, one of Europe’s leading business intellectuals walked over and joined me for a particularly interesting conversation. He wanted to challenge something I had said a year or so before; that political Europe would be internally absorbed in integrating all the new members of the EU for decades to come. He too said they would be internally absorbed but for a different reason. He sees Europe fragmenting, but not along nation state lines. Rather it is tearing itself apart along many seams, immigrant vs. native, religion, class, age, and culture. The European vision of the post WWII generation has been lost at the very time that the internal tensions are becoming ever greater and the bases for agreement ever weaker. He believes that most of the energy of these societies will be burned up in just holding their countries together. It will mean slower growth in Europe as interest groups buy each other off out of the state coffers and that economic adaptation will be very slow in coming.
Based on a further conversation at his home in Amsterdam, he also believes that at least one of the major fault-lines is likely to be the increasing role of religion in politics in Europe. This will not be about issues of religious values, e.g. abortion, gay rights, etc. as in the US. These are settled issues in Europe. It is more about the politics of identity and Victor sees parties like the German Christian Democrats becoming more Christian. It is another way of creating a unique sense of identity now that the European dream may be dying and the nation state has been semi-absorbed into the EU. It gives people something strong with which to identify. As before in European history, this is unlikely to have a happy outcome."
I only covered a bit, there is a lot more.
Met Peter some years ago at PCForum
Some snippets:
Ethanol:
Schwartz at Davos 07: Clinate change keeps on coming:
"At the Yale reception spoke with Zedillo about the impact of the biofuels industry in the US on Mexico…pricing corn out of the tortilla market for the poor of Mexico. They may have to break NAFTA to survive the US move in ethanol."
But NYTimes says that's OK:
The Price of Corn - New York Times:
"The historical cheapness of corn has driven it into nearly every aspect of our economy, in the form, most familiarly, of corn syrup. The low price of corn over the past half-century lies at the very foundation of America’s historically (and unrealistically) low food prices.
Gratifying our two major appetites — cheap food and cheap gas — used to seem easy because both corn and oil were abundant. Cheap oil helped keep corn prices low because it cost farmers less to run their tractors and combines.
But we are entering a new dynamic now. While there has been talk recently about refining ethanol from sources other than corn, that could take a while. So at the moment what we are trying to do is gratify those appetites from the same resource: agricultural land. No matter how high prices go, what will need to change isn’t the amount of corn acreage available or even the size of the enormous harvests we are already getting. What will need to change is the size of our appetites."
Different sort of Conservative!
Schwartz at Davos 07: Non stop morning:
"Thursday morning:
The morning began at 7 with a breakfast conversation with David Cameron, the Tory leader. He joined me because of a comment I had made at the dinner the evening before. I must say I continued to be surprised by him. He intends to really lead on environmental issues in Britain. He said, “After all shouldn’t a conservative be for conservation.” "
And maybe not all is hopeless in Iraq:
Now I am in the great hall in panel on Iraq, chaired by Richard Haas, the President of the Council on foreign Relations with a Sunni and Shiite VP of Iraq. Much to our surprise the panel was modestly positive. They focused on how to get beyond the politics of exclusion. On the other hand they argued they would need peace keepers for a long time, even possibly under a UN mandate, as a last resort. They even agreed that they were not far from reaching agreement on oil revenue sharing. Graham Allison of Harvard rose to ask whether the Iraquis would really come with their own security forces. And the Sunni VP gave a fairly detailed response on how the forces would develop and intervene. And even the Shiite VP agreed strongly that Iraq would remain one country.
Interesting spin on demographics - call it "anti-aging formula"
Schwartz at Davos 07: Limiting ,population, growth, Africa and Jimmy Wales:
"My first session of the day was The Procreation Choice…about reproductive technologies and all the issues surrounding them. I was the moderator but the panel was terrific. A Columbia Professor Raymond Fisman who has studied how people choose at sperm banks (what is really desirable sperm) and how they choose dates, Prof. Robert Winston of Imperial College, London who argued that gender choice was about to become a real issue, but the rest of the issue was irrelevant. But most profound was Ingrid Mattson, the first woman head of the Islamic Society of North America. She took the conversation in a surprising direction focusing on the immigration issue and how some countries are now trying to raise their birthrates through technology to avoid becoming immigrant societies. She also pointed out that, of course, limiting reproduction has been and continues to be the most critical reproductive decision that women are making today."
And more "anti-aging"
My lunch event was on extending human lifespan. In the end there was a lot of agreement on the technology potential but the real issue they focused on was cost and associated inequities. If we can’t all live longer should anyone?
Africa in the Sino-American Century
Schwartz at Davos 07: Limiting ,population, growth, Africa and Jimmy Wales:
"Africans need to develop the strength to really negotiate with China. Richard Haas said that Africa is now part of globalization …not just an internal matter for the continent. Now linked to the world in at least ten ways…energy, HIV/AIDs, terror, developmental, trade (as negotiators), conflicts, genocide, governance, role of AU, role of external powers. He argued that there is a need for the US and China to come together on how to deal with Africa."
Europe:
Schwartz at Davos 07: Fragmenting Europe and final thoughts:
"Prof. Victor Halberstadt, one of Europe’s leading business intellectuals walked over and joined me for a particularly interesting conversation. He wanted to challenge something I had said a year or so before; that political Europe would be internally absorbed in integrating all the new members of the EU for decades to come. He too said they would be internally absorbed but for a different reason. He sees Europe fragmenting, but not along nation state lines. Rather it is tearing itself apart along many seams, immigrant vs. native, religion, class, age, and culture. The European vision of the post WWII generation has been lost at the very time that the internal tensions are becoming ever greater and the bases for agreement ever weaker. He believes that most of the energy of these societies will be burned up in just holding their countries together. It will mean slower growth in Europe as interest groups buy each other off out of the state coffers and that economic adaptation will be very slow in coming.
Based on a further conversation at his home in Amsterdam, he also believes that at least one of the major fault-lines is likely to be the increasing role of religion in politics in Europe. This will not be about issues of religious values, e.g. abortion, gay rights, etc. as in the US. These are settled issues in Europe. It is more about the politics of identity and Victor sees parties like the German Christian Democrats becoming more Christian. It is another way of creating a unique sense of identity now that the European dream may be dying and the nation state has been semi-absorbed into the EU. It gives people something strong with which to identify. As before in European history, this is unlikely to have a happy outcome."
I only covered a bit, there is a lot more.
Different sort of "Mile High Club"
250 mile high club?
Astronaut Charged With Attempted Murder - New York Times:
Guess it means that space is becoming "normal" ...
Astronaut Charged With Attempted Murder - New York Times:
Guess it means that space is becoming "normal" ...
Stooper Bowl
Different views of Ads
NYTimes : "Super Bowl Ads of Cartoonish Violence, Perhaps Reflecting Toll of War"
"No commercial that appeared last night during Super Bowl XLI directly addressed Iraq, unlike a patriotic spot for Budweiser beer that ran during the game two years ago. But the ongoing war seemed to linger just below the surface of many of this year’s commercials."
WSJournal : "Super Bowl Advertisers Play It for Laughs"
"Slap-happy men, a celebrity bad boy and a feel-good Coke ad won the game within the game during Super Bowl XLI, impressing ad-industry pros and consumers, and showing once again that humor is the best way to grab viewers' attention during the gridiron classic."
Hey folks, this is Football, big guys bashing each other.
It's not the Olympics.
I tend to lean towards the Journal's side on this one... you watch for something entertaining, not political. I frankly laughed out loud at the Paper-Scissors-Rock one.
NYTimes : "Super Bowl Ads of Cartoonish Violence, Perhaps Reflecting Toll of War"
"No commercial that appeared last night during Super Bowl XLI directly addressed Iraq, unlike a patriotic spot for Budweiser beer that ran during the game two years ago. But the ongoing war seemed to linger just below the surface of many of this year’s commercials."
WSJournal : "Super Bowl Advertisers Play It for Laughs"
"Slap-happy men, a celebrity bad boy and a feel-good Coke ad won the game within the game during Super Bowl XLI, impressing ad-industry pros and consumers, and showing once again that humor is the best way to grab viewers' attention during the gridiron classic."
Hey folks, this is Football, big guys bashing each other.
It's not the Olympics.
I tend to lean towards the Journal's side on this one... you watch for something entertaining, not political. I frankly laughed out loud at the Paper-Scissors-Rock one.
Whoops
Early AM, spotted this in WSJournal, front page online:
Democrats are seeking ATM relief.
Bet they intended to say "Democrats are seeking AMT relief." Alternative Minimum Tax, not Automatic Teller Machine
Democrats are seeking ATM relief.
Bet they intended to say "Democrats are seeking AMT relief." Alternative Minimum Tax, not Automatic Teller Machine
Monday, February 05, 2007
Food Blogs?
Thought maybe there would be some interesting sources here
Sharp Bites - New York Times
But, seems that most of the blogs are about eating out, not cooking and eating in.
This is more like it: Meg's Blog "Megnut" and from Meg I discovered "Serious Eats"
Sharp Bites - New York Times
But, seems that most of the blogs are about eating out, not cooking and eating in.
This is more like it: Meg's Blog "Megnut" and from Meg I discovered "Serious Eats"
Mission accomplished
We have water.
Back story:
Checked the cabin yesterday, mainly because of cold, but also to get out and about.
Little did I know.
Just past noon.
We've got heat "trickled" on, lowest setting possible on propane heater, holds mid to high 40's. Last fall we had the crawlspace "foamed" to insulate, therefore did not drain plumbing.
Well ... no water.
So, drop Shirley off at home, load up gear, run to Traverse City, normally about 20-30 min, now more like 45+ as it was blowing snow, sometimes visiblity down to 100ft, or less.
Make it to Lowe's, stock up on heat tape, Infra-red lamp etc.
Snow not quite knee deep around access panel to crawl, it would get tromped down pretty well.
Tape pipes, back home for zip-ties, extension cords (better one than packed) thermometer, more work in crawl. Pressure in tank, but still no water, crawl in mid 30's... about 4hrs blown out of afternoon.
Wrap up, pack up before game time and keep fingers crossed.
Back this AM... ta-da... we have water, no signs of burst pipes.
Whew
Later... will do more of a "tidy" job of it.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Wanta Bet ?
Quick review of Long Bets
"Long Bets is a nonprofit foundation that calls itself an “arena for competitive, accountable predictions.” It lets anyone make a prediction and take wagers on it, with the proceeds going to a charity named by the winner. The bets made so far are from $200 to $10,000, on topics ranging from the driving habits of Americans in 2010 to whether the universe will stop expanding. Mitchell Kapor, the software guru, is betting that in 2029 no computer will have passed the Turing test (by conversing so much like a human that you couldn’t tell the difference). The physicist Freeman Dyson’s money is on the first extraterrestrial life’s being found somewhere other than a planet or its satellite."
Note : my prediction (257) is still open "Hydrocarbon fuels will be the "fuel of choice" for personal transportation for the next 50 years"
"Long Bets is a nonprofit foundation that calls itself an “arena for competitive, accountable predictions.” It lets anyone make a prediction and take wagers on it, with the proceeds going to a charity named by the winner. The bets made so far are from $200 to $10,000, on topics ranging from the driving habits of Americans in 2010 to whether the universe will stop expanding. Mitchell Kapor, the software guru, is betting that in 2029 no computer will have passed the Turing test (by conversing so much like a human that you couldn’t tell the difference). The physicist Freeman Dyson’s money is on the first extraterrestrial life’s being found somewhere other than a planet or its satellite."
Note : my prediction (257) is still open "Hydrocarbon fuels will be the "fuel of choice" for personal transportation for the next 50 years"
Snot to cold
Near Whiteout
Can only see maybe 100yards out onto the lake
"Lake Effect" snow & blowing snow
Ran the snowblower, just to get outside
Almost noon and it's still zero outside
Cold enough that your snot freezes in your nose
Can only see maybe 100yards out onto the lake
"Lake Effect" snow & blowing snow
Ran the snowblower, just to get outside
Almost noon and it's still zero outside
Cold enough that your snot freezes in your nose
Friday, February 02, 2007
éminence grise
Paul (Boutin) on Valley "Fashion"
Hey... I can dig this :
1. Dyed hair. Valley gals get to color. You don't. It'll show, and everyone will know. If you're going gray, skip the Grecian Formula and wear your salt-and-pepper with pride. "Wow, do you know what that is?" an old friend I ran into recently asked, pointing excitedly to the first touch of gray in my sideburns. "It's an extra hundred an hour in consulting fees!"
I suspect I have more salt than pepper... now how to cash in on that.
Hey... I can dig this :
1. Dyed hair. Valley gals get to color. You don't. It'll show, and everyone will know. If you're going gray, skip the Grecian Formula and wear your salt-and-pepper with pride. "Wow, do you know what that is?" an old friend I ran into recently asked, pointing excitedly to the first touch of gray in my sideburns. "It's an extra hundred an hour in consulting fees!"
I suspect I have more salt than pepper... now how to cash in on that.
Sources
Where do some of the "talk radio" hosts get their "rock solid" solid information?
Maybe out of thin air.
NYTimes:
The Clinton-Obama article followed a series of inaccurate or hard-to-verify articles on Insight and its predecessor magazine about politics, the Iraq war or the Bush administration, including a widely discussed report on the Insight Web site that President Bush’s relationship with his father was so strained that they were no longer speaking to each other about politics.
---
Maybe out of thin air.
NYTimes:
The controversy started with a quickly discredited Jan. 17 article on the Insight Web site asserting that the presidential campaign of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was preparing an accusation that her rival, Senator Barack Obama, had covered up a brief period he had spent in an Islamic religious school in Indonesia when he was 6.
(Other news organizations have confirmed Mr. Obama’s descriptions of the school as a secular public school. Both senators have denounced the report, and there is no evidence that Mrs. Clinton’s campaign planned to spread those accusations.)
---The Clinton-Obama article followed a series of inaccurate or hard-to-verify articles on Insight and its predecessor magazine about politics, the Iraq war or the Bush administration, including a widely discussed report on the Insight Web site that President Bush’s relationship with his father was so strained that they were no longer speaking to each other about politics.
---
With so much anonymity, “How do we know that Insight magazine actually exists?” Professor Whitehead added. “It could be performance art.”
But hosts of morning television programs and an evening commentator on the Fox News Network nevertheless devoted extensive discussion to Insight’s Clinton-Obama article, as did Rush Limbaugh and other conservative talk radio hosts.
Snow
Just after noon
Mostly "Lake Effect" snows, sometimes it was pure "white out" where we couldn't even see the shoreline.
Another few days due.
We only got a few inches so far, some communities and areas north and south to get a foot to two or three this weekend.
Change of Season
Finally put up the chainsaws and related gear, swapped for the ski's and snowshoes.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
New Gig
Well, my friends at Earthy have added me to the masthead
Earthy Blogs @ Earthy.com:
"Where we sound off about our favorite food topics."
Guess it's time to dust off an old blog, pull together some fresh entries.
Please note that these guys are pros, I'm a rank novice. But this will light a fire under my backside to get better!
Watch out pantry/kitchen, here I come...
Earthy Blogs @ Earthy.com:
"Where we sound off about our favorite food topics."
Guess it's time to dust off an old blog, pull together some fresh entries.
Please note that these guys are pros, I'm a rank novice. But this will light a fire under my backside to get better!
Watch out pantry/kitchen, here I come...
What's goin on here ...
So it's all over CNN like white on rice:
Suspicious Devices in Boston Turn Out to Be Ad Campaign for Cartoon - New York Times
NOTE : Turner and CNN are both Time Warner outfits... and Time Warner was releasing earnings.
Bit of hype? or News covering Hype?
Suspicious Devices in Boston Turn Out to Be Ad Campaign for Cartoon - New York Times
BOSTON, Jan. 31 — Boston temporarily closed parts of bridges, subway stations, an Interstate highway and even part of the Charles River on Wednesday after the authorities found what the police described as suspicious devices at nine places.
But the devices, which included circuit boards, turned out to be part of a marketing campaign by Turner Broadcasting to advertise a cartoon television show, “Aqua Teen Hunger Force.”
Didn't see anything on CNBC, granted I was busy sorting out a lame router/LAN, but ...NOTE : Turner and CNN are both Time Warner outfits... and Time Warner was releasing earnings.
Bit of hype? or News covering Hype?
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Food for Thought
Good, if somewhat lengthly piece on nutrition vs food, cover story Sunday NYTimes Magazine:
Unhappy Meals - Michael Pollan - New York Times:
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
That, more or less, is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy. I hate to give away the game right here at the beginning of a long essay, and I confess that I’m tempted to complicate matters in the interest of keeping things going for a few thousand more words. I’ll try to resist but will go ahead and add a couple more details to flesh out the advice. Like: A little meat won’t kill you, though it’s better approached as a side dish than as a main. And you’re much better off eating whole fresh foods than processed food products. That’s what I mean by the recommendation to eat “food.” Once, food was all you could eat, but today there are lots of other edible foodlike substances in the supermarket. These novel products of food science often come in packages festooned with health claims, which brings me to a related rule of thumb: if you’re concerned about your health, you should probably avoid food products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a good indication that it’s not really food, and food is what you want to eat.
Unhappy Meals - Michael Pollan - New York Times:
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
That, more or less, is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy. I hate to give away the game right here at the beginning of a long essay, and I confess that I’m tempted to complicate matters in the interest of keeping things going for a few thousand more words. I’ll try to resist but will go ahead and add a couple more details to flesh out the advice. Like: A little meat won’t kill you, though it’s better approached as a side dish than as a main. And you’re much better off eating whole fresh foods than processed food products. That’s what I mean by the recommendation to eat “food.” Once, food was all you could eat, but today there are lots of other edible foodlike substances in the supermarket. These novel products of food science often come in packages festooned with health claims, which brings me to a related rule of thumb: if you’re concerned about your health, you should probably avoid food products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a good indication that it’s not really food, and food is what you want to eat.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Amen
Ethanol: A Risky Business:
"Washington seems poised to help producers of the alternative fuel prosper, but risks from commodity prices to politics leave investors leery"
Corn prices up, squeezing margins on cost side, Saudi's to hold down oil prices (targeting 50's) squeezing on the sales side.
Capacity glut coming.
Issues with transportation and corrosion of pumps and fuel systems.
Not for Me
"Washington seems poised to help producers of the alternative fuel prosper, but risks from commodity prices to politics leave investors leery"
Corn prices up, squeezing margins on cost side, Saudi's to hold down oil prices (targeting 50's) squeezing on the sales side.
Capacity glut coming.
Issues with transportation and corrosion of pumps and fuel systems.
Not for Me
Firearms
POLITICS: Why true geeks carry guns - Valleywag
Guess I tend to fall in the Libertarian/Centrist area.
Note on firearms, back in my early teens, I was NRA ranked "Expert" working on Distinguished...
But haven't shot a round for years
Guess I tend to fall in the Libertarian/Centrist area.
Note on firearms, back in my early teens, I was NRA ranked "Expert" working on Distinguished...
But haven't shot a round for years
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Homage to Russell Chatham
An artist who's work I love.
Inspiration to do simple digital photos like the one above.
Misty, hazy or snowy full of atmosphere.
Such as these : CHATHAM FINE ART
A few other shots from today, only a couple are "Chatham-esq"
Winterscapes - a photoset on Flickr
BTW - above shot was 12:30, a few miles away in "Snowbelt"
A "Not so Perfect Mess"
Well ...
CBS Sunday Morning
Bill Geist interviewed the author and toured various offices at CBS
A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder--How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices, and On-the-Fly Planning Make the World a Better Place: Books: Eric Abrahamson,David H. Freedman:
Whole point being, that, to a point, "messy" offices are more "effective" offices
And THIS is after a couple of days of filing and tossing.
Taking a break for the weekend
CBS Sunday Morning
Bill Geist interviewed the author and toured various offices at CBS
A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder--How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices, and On-the-Fly Planning Make the World a Better Place: Books: Eric Abrahamson,David H. Freedman:
Whole point being, that, to a point, "messy" offices are more "effective" offices
And THIS is after a couple of days of filing and tossing.
Taking a break for the weekend
Morning View
Bit of "abstract" but actual digital photo
Bottom, "foreground" is snow, next is ice, followed by open water, then snow/clouds obscuring the far side of the lake.
Shot around 9:12AM 1/16/07 of our "Front Yard"
No No No it Ain't Me Babe
Although Shirley may sometimes think I look this rough...
One of my favorite writers. In part, I'm likely influenced by the fact that until not long ago (couple years?) he lived "just up the road"
Currently about a 3rd of the way through "True North" - only reading when at out "Cabin" as it seems fitting.
PATAGONIA, Ariz. — Jim Harrison, author of rugged, outdoorsy books like “True North” and “Legends of the Fall,”...
Follow the link - nice little profile of a giant writer
Pleasures of the Hard-Worn Life - New York Times
One of my favorite writers. In part, I'm likely influenced by the fact that until not long ago (couple years?) he lived "just up the road"
Currently about a 3rd of the way through "True North" - only reading when at out "Cabin" as it seems fitting.
PATAGONIA, Ariz. — Jim Harrison, author of rugged, outdoorsy books like “True North” and “Legends of the Fall,”...
Follow the link - nice little profile of a giant writer
Pleasures of the Hard-Worn Life - New York Times
Blog Because
No entries for the last week or so, been busy.
Meetings, conferences, travel, mo-meetings, mo-travel (back home) then back into massive file cleaning, office "cleaning" (which involves going through what seems like a year's worth of mail, magazines, paperwork accumulated in "the Cave"... some filing, some tossing - which sometimes is mearly tossing into another pile), and such.
And some snow.
If weather holds (more snow) planning to get out and both photo (my favorite time of year for this) and snowshoe/ski.
Meetings, conferences, travel, mo-meetings, mo-travel (back home) then back into massive file cleaning, office "cleaning" (which involves going through what seems like a year's worth of mail, magazines, paperwork accumulated in "the Cave"... some filing, some tossing - which sometimes is mearly tossing into another pile), and such.
And some snow.
If weather holds (more snow) planning to get out and both photo (my favorite time of year for this) and snowshoe/ski.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Virtual Hype
Haven't posted about "virtual worlds" for a while, a bit too busy with the "real world" for now.
Some prior ... Looney Dunes: Worlds of Wierdness ?
Sooo
Cruising through Valleywag, Silicon Valley's Tech Gossip Rag
BTW Valleywag is a pretty good read.
Spotted this:
Linden Lab's virtual world got a BusinessWeek cover story in May, and hired Lewis as their PR agency in October. This graph, of press mentions of Second Life tracked by Nexis.com, shows the short-term benefit of a press offensive. David Kirkpatrick has a another piece coming out in the next issue of Fortune, we hear. But it's always dangerous for an internet venture when media hype gets too far ahead of audience growth. Benchmark-backed Linden Lab claims 2.7m "residents" of Second Life but concedes only a tenth of that number visit the 3D environment each month.
and I guess this reinforces my own bias
Second Life: French Racists vs. Exploding Pigs - Gawker: "Whatever your politics or personal thoughts about virtual playground Second Life, after reading the following, it will be hard to avoid thinking of the service as little more than a romper
room for retards. "
Some prior ... Looney Dunes: Worlds of Wierdness ?
Sooo
Cruising through Valleywag, Silicon Valley's Tech Gossip Rag
BTW Valleywag is a pretty good read.
Spotted this:
Second Life press hype
Linden Lab's virtual world got a BusinessWeek cover story in May, and hired Lewis as their PR agency in October. This graph, of press mentions of Second Life tracked by Nexis.com, shows the short-term benefit of a press offensive. David Kirkpatrick has a another piece coming out in the next issue of Fortune, we hear. But it's always dangerous for an internet venture when media hype gets too far ahead of audience growth. Benchmark-backed Linden Lab claims 2.7m "residents" of Second Life but concedes only a tenth of that number visit the 3D environment each month.
Second Life: French Racists vs. Exploding Pigs - Gawker: "Whatever your politics or personal thoughts about virtual playground Second Life, after reading the following, it will be hard to avoid thinking of the service as little more than a romper
room for retards. "
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Conundrum
So...Shirley gave me this great GPS dashtop for Christmas, and I've had fun with it.
Still a lot of features to learn and explore.
But here goes the conumdrum:
There is a voice direction feature, with a pleasant "woman's" artificial voice (note that the Air Force found that a woman's voice got a pilot's attention, wonder if they have done further research on women pilot's). Anyway, running errands in town the other day, she (Shirley) wanted me to toggle on the voice directions. OK, but then she wanted me to take a "shortcut" to get home.
I now had two "women" giving conflicting driving directions...every few blocks.
A pair of "front seat drivers" ... what's a man to do?
Needless to say, Shirley won.
But I've yet to find the "easy off" toggle to the GPS voice.
Oil Weapon Cont...
Bush signals move against Shia in Iraq, gains support of Sunni Saudi's... just a guess.
Oil falls under $52 as Saudi eases worries on OPEC cuts - Jan. 16, 2007:
"Saudi's comments rattle oil
Oil minister says curbed supply is working well and 'there is no need to panic' on speculation of an emergency meeting.
January 16 2007: 9:29 AM EST
LONDON (Reuters) -- Oil prices reached below $52 a barrel Tuesday after Saudi Arabia's oil minister said OPEC production cuts were working well and there was no need for an emergency meeting of the producer group.
U.S. crude was 84 cents lower at $52.15 a barrel in electronic trading after trading as low as $51.75. Brent futures shed 47 cents to $52.65.
U.S. crude was barely above a 19-month low of $51.56 hit lost week, which took losses since the end of last year to around 15 percent.
'We took measures in October in Doha and measures in Abuja [in December] and I believe these measures are working well. Inventories in the fourth quarter have come down ... which puts the market closer to balance,' Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said in New Delhi. 'There is no need to panic.'"
Oil falls under $52 as Saudi eases worries on OPEC cuts - Jan. 16, 2007:
"Saudi's comments rattle oil
Oil minister says curbed supply is working well and 'there is no need to panic' on speculation of an emergency meeting.
January 16 2007: 9:29 AM EST
LONDON (Reuters) -- Oil prices reached below $52 a barrel Tuesday after Saudi Arabia's oil minister said OPEC production cuts were working well and there was no need for an emergency meeting of the producer group.
U.S. crude was 84 cents lower at $52.15 a barrel in electronic trading after trading as low as $51.75. Brent futures shed 47 cents to $52.65.
U.S. crude was barely above a 19-month low of $51.56 hit lost week, which took losses since the end of last year to around 15 percent.
'We took measures in October in Doha and measures in Abuja [in December] and I believe these measures are working well. Inventories in the fourth quarter have come down ... which puts the market closer to balance,' Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said in New Delhi. 'There is no need to panic.'"
Foodie
Check this out for some insight on co-creator of Blogger and now a foodie:
leahpeah interview with meg hourihan:
"Meg Hourihan of Megnut.com went All Food All the Time in 2006 and is a self-proclaimed food enthusiast."
Creation of innovative technology and tools can be compatible with everyday life.
leahpeah interview with meg hourihan:
"Meg Hourihan of Megnut.com went All Food All the Time in 2006 and is a self-proclaimed food enthusiast."
Creation of innovative technology and tools can be compatible with everyday life.
The Skinny
Interesting perspective on human skin and evolution of brainpower...
Nina G. Jablonski - Always Revealing, Human Skin Is an Anthropologist's Map - New York Times:
"On an evolutionary level, there are three remarkable facts about skin. It comes in colors, of course. Compared to other mammals, our skin is relatively hairless. And it%u2019s sweaty. In the last few million years, humans became the sweatiest of mammals.
Q. Is that important?
A. Absolutely. It%u2019s often said that our large brains are what made it possible for us to evolve from ape to human. But those big brains could never have developed if we didn%u2019t have exceptionally sweaty skin.
It happened this way. There was a tremendous takeoff in human evolution about two million years ago when primates who could no longer be called apes appeared in the savannahs of East Africa. These early humans ran long distances in open areas. In order to survive in the equatorial sun, they needed to cool their brains. Early humans evolved an increased number of sweat glands for that purpose, which in turn permitted their brain size to expand. As soon as we developed larger brains, our planning capacity increased, and this allowed people to disperse out of Africa. There's fossil evidence of humans appearing in Central Asia around this time."
Nina G. Jablonski - Always Revealing, Human Skin Is an Anthropologist's Map - New York Times:
"On an evolutionary level, there are three remarkable facts about skin. It comes in colors, of course. Compared to other mammals, our skin is relatively hairless. And it%u2019s sweaty. In the last few million years, humans became the sweatiest of mammals.
Q. Is that important?
A. Absolutely. It%u2019s often said that our large brains are what made it possible for us to evolve from ape to human. But those big brains could never have developed if we didn%u2019t have exceptionally sweaty skin.
It happened this way. There was a tremendous takeoff in human evolution about two million years ago when primates who could no longer be called apes appeared in the savannahs of East Africa. These early humans ran long distances in open areas. In order to survive in the equatorial sun, they needed to cool their brains. Early humans evolved an increased number of sweat glands for that purpose, which in turn permitted their brain size to expand. As soon as we developed larger brains, our planning capacity increased, and this allowed people to disperse out of Africa. There's fossil evidence of humans appearing in Central Asia around this time."
Monday, January 15, 2007
Getting Started
Spending most of the last couple of days doing massive email clean, to be followed (hopefully) with file cleaning.
Anyway,ran across one that helped push me over the edge to get started.
Doc Searls message Jan 31, 2005
Exchange :
Doc:
Just a good chuckle, thought you'd enjoy
Spotted on CNBC ( rare moment with sound on )
"unstable megalomaniac under enormous pressure"
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1463867,00.html
Handwriting analysis of Bill Gates doodles
Damn - glad no-one gets ahold of mine (VBG)
Ciao
Chip
Doc
>
> Thanks. Doing a blog yet? I'll give you credit for the pointers.
>
Not yet, but several have been prodding me to do so
A bit slow this time of year ( or is it just today ? )
Also have been looking to do something like it for internal use - within a couple
of my small companies ... also have looked at Twiki's ...
I liked Tom Barnett's comments on repository of ideas
Gettin closer to doing so
Till then, will just feed an occasional snippet to the "Big Dog" of Blogs (G)
Ciao
Chip
---
And so it goes
Anyway,ran across one that helped push me over the edge to get started.
Doc Searls message Jan 31, 2005
Exchange :
Doc:
Just a good chuckle, thought you'd enjoy
Spotted on CNBC ( rare moment with sound on )
"unstable megalomaniac under enormous pressure"
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1463867,00.html
Handwriting analysis of Bill Gates doodles
Damn - glad no-one gets ahold of mine (VBG)
Ciao
Chip
Doc
>
> Thanks. Doing a blog yet? I'll give you credit for the pointers.
>
Not yet, but several have been prodding me to do so
A bit slow this time of year ( or is it just today ? )
Also have been looking to do something like it for internal use - within a couple
of my small companies ... also have looked at Twiki's ...
I liked Tom Barnett's comments on repository of ideas
Gettin closer to doing so
Till then, will just feed an occasional snippet to the "Big Dog" of Blogs (G)
Ciao
Chip
---
And so it goes
Friday, January 12, 2007
Oil Continued
Wall Street Journal reads my blog and fills in more data.
"The price of oil tends to be volatile, and it could bounce back quickly. But if sustained, the decline in prices would have a big impact on everything from the American consumer to the profits of giant energy companies. It also could dent the revenues -- and the political clout -- of major oil-producing nations like Russia, Iran and Venezuela.
A senior official of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said yesterday that OPEC will consider the need for an emergency meeting to weigh what it should do to halt the price slide. OPEC already was cutting back its production sharply, the official said. He didn't specify whether the cartel would consider cuts beyond the 1.7 million barrels a day it has already pledged to remove from the market.
If lower oil prices lead to a reduction in what American consumers spend on gasoline, it would leave them with more money for all kinds of discretionary purchases, such as restaurant meals, movies and vacations. That spending could provide a welcome cushion for the U.S. economy, which is grappling with a sharp downturn in the housing sector. It could also give a boost to airlines and auto makers, which have been hurt by high fuel prices."
But they miss the Geopolitical point of how this plays against Iran, among others. The Saudi's are still the swing producers. How does this fit the Sunni/Shia rift, the Arab/Persian face off?
Not to mention Hugo Chavez, Russia and China.
And what will Congress have to say?
Any help for the oil industry?
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Oil Weapon?
Geopolitics.Note that all of the following is just a personal guess.
Oil moving down with many causes, from warm winter in the Eastern US (where heating oil is a major market) to Goldman Sachs shifting the mix in their commodity index, to simply unwinding of last year's bubble.
Who wins?
Consumers.
Who looses?
Producers, from Venezuela to Iran and Russia.
Note that oil prices were a major tool used by Regan to put pressure on Russia to end the Cold War. Is the same tool being used against Iran?
(image from WSJournal)
Has the Bush Administration decided to play hardball for the last 2 years it has left?
Upping the ante in Iraq with troop buildup (which will be used to counter Shia militia as well as Sunni's), support for Ethiopia against "Islamic Courts" in Somalia, now adding pressure through the markets to signal Iran and Russia to "play nice."
How does China fit in?
Treasury Sec. Paulson seems to have had some success in currency discussions.
Lower oil prices help China, is there a quid pro quo?
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Plate Tectonics
Here I go dating myself ... I can remember when the topic of Plate Tectonics was brought up on (College) Geology class as "unproven" theory. But the faculty bought into it, it just wasn't quite "respectable" yet.
Geology - Long-Term Global Forecast? Fewer Continents - New York Times
"Forecasts of future continental motion developed slowly as offshoots of the theory of plate tectonics, which won acceptance in the 1960s and 1970s, shattering old dogmas of continental immobility. The theory of plate tectonics holds that the surface of Earth is composed of a dozen or so huge crustal slabs that float on a sea of partially molten rock. Over ages, hot convection currents in this sea, as well as gravitational forces, move the plates and their superimposed continents and ocean basins, tearing them apart and rearranging them like pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle."
Geology - Long-Term Global Forecast? Fewer Continents - New York Times
"Forecasts of future continental motion developed slowly as offshoots of the theory of plate tectonics, which won acceptance in the 1960s and 1970s, shattering old dogmas of continental immobility. The theory of plate tectonics holds that the surface of Earth is composed of a dozen or so huge crustal slabs that float on a sea of partially molten rock. Over ages, hot convection currents in this sea, as well as gravitational forces, move the plates and their superimposed continents and ocean basins, tearing them apart and rearranging them like pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle."
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Not your daughter's Prius
Bob Lutz was right, the Prius was a great marketing coup ... allows Toyota to sell gas guzzlers (note that although some 200,000 hybrids were sold in '06, that's just 1.3% of the market) :
Toyota Enters the Auto Show With a Swagger - New York Times:
Toyota Enters the Auto Show With a Swagger - New York Times:
Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times
Toyota introduced the Crew Max, a bigger, four-door version of its Tundra pickup, its largest truck sold here.
...is available with Toyota’s biggest engine, a 5.7-liter V8 with 381 horsepower.
That is a departure from Toyota’s reputation for building fuel-efficient vehicles. And it is far cry from Toyota’s first full-sized pickup, the T-100, whose lack of power and towing capability made it made it merely a pale imitation of those from G.M., Ford and Chrysler.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Hydrocarbons ... Where?
Hydrocarbons from sources other than "living things"?
"Fossil Fuels"?
Below Haze, Saturn’s Biggest Moon Has Lakes - New York Times:
"Finding large bodies of liquid methane and probably ethane on Titan, in lakes or perhaps vast seas, had long been hypothesized, based on telescope observations of that moon’s smoggy methane-rich atmosphere and by the two Voyager spacecraft that passed close some 30 years ago. But the Cassini remote-sensing instruments had failed to detect an ocean, though they and the European Space Agency’s Huygens lander did find traces of the channels where liquids had apparently flowed across the surface."
and
"Jonathan I. Lunine of the University of Arizona, another member of the discovery team, described in an interview what the lakes probably look like. The methane liquid would be transparent, enough to see the dark hydrocarbon sediments on the floor of shallow lakes. The liquid would be less viscous than water, perhaps like gasoline. Overhead, aerosols, minute particles in the upper atmosphere, presumably cast a dim orange light on the lake. In the dark of winter, one would need a flashlight to walk the shore."
"Fossil Fuels"?
Below Haze, Saturn’s Biggest Moon Has Lakes - New York Times:
"Finding large bodies of liquid methane and probably ethane on Titan, in lakes or perhaps vast seas, had long been hypothesized, based on telescope observations of that moon’s smoggy methane-rich atmosphere and by the two Voyager spacecraft that passed close some 30 years ago. But the Cassini remote-sensing instruments had failed to detect an ocean, though they and the European Space Agency’s Huygens lander did find traces of the channels where liquids had apparently flowed across the surface."
and
"Jonathan I. Lunine of the University of Arizona, another member of the discovery team, described in an interview what the lakes probably look like. The methane liquid would be transparent, enough to see the dark hydrocarbon sediments on the floor of shallow lakes. The liquid would be less viscous than water, perhaps like gasoline. Overhead, aerosols, minute particles in the upper atmosphere, presumably cast a dim orange light on the lake. In the dark of winter, one would need a flashlight to walk the shore."
The Bridge Builder
One of my favorite writers, and Esther 's "Daddy"
I fondly remember my few chats at the late great PCForum
The Scientist as Rebel By Freeman Dyson - Books - Review - New York Times:
"In “The Scientist as Rebel,” a new collection of essays (many of them reviews first published in The New York Review of Books), he sounds content with his role as a bridge builder. “Tomonaga and Schwinger had built solid foundations on one side of a river of ignorance,” he writes. “Feynman had built solid foundations on the other side, and my job was to design and build the cantilevers reaching out over the water until they met in the middle.”
Drawing on this instinct for unlikely connections, Dyson has become one of science’s most eloquent interpreters."
I fondly remember my few chats at the late great PCForum
The Scientist as Rebel By Freeman Dyson - Books - Review - New York Times:
"In “The Scientist as Rebel,” a new collection of essays (many of them reviews first published in The New York Review of Books), he sounds content with his role as a bridge builder. “Tomonaga and Schwinger had built solid foundations on one side of a river of ignorance,” he writes. “Feynman had built solid foundations on the other side, and my job was to design and build the cantilevers reaching out over the water until they met in the middle.”
Drawing on this instinct for unlikely connections, Dyson has become one of science’s most eloquent interpreters."
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Virtual Values
Lawsuit over ownership of online or Virtual IP, who "owns" your Avatar or virtual real estate?
Virtual Worlds Collide With Real Laws - News by InformationWeek 12/07/06:
"Legal experts and game players closely eye lawsuit against Second Life, which asks courts to clarify the legal status of virtual property "
Virtual Worlds Collide With Real Laws - News by InformationWeek 12/07/06:
"Legal experts and game players closely eye lawsuit against Second Life, which asks courts to clarify the legal status of virtual property "
Friday, January 05, 2007
Bias
Following is copyrighted material, but will disappear eventually and I think it's an important point of view.
GM gets targeted as "bad guy" while Japanese Mfg's get a free pass.
Autoweek:
GM gets targeted as "bad guy" while Japanese Mfg's get a free pass.
Autoweek:
| Kevin A. Wilson |
| Getting Zapped |
AutoWeek | Published 01/04/07, 2:32 pm et |
"General Motors got a raw deal from the makers of the film Who Killed The Electric Car? That’s not just my assertion; it’s that of Toyota Motor Sales exec Ernest Bastien, vice president for vehicle operations, as reported by Mark Phelan in The Detroit Free Press recently. The Dec. 20 story even quotes the film’s director, Chris Paine, saying that, “We let Toyota off the hook for how they subverted the program” in the documentary, released on DVD Nov. 14.
GM’s EV1, said Paine, was the “iconic” electric car while Toyota’s RAV4-EV was basically a conversion on a standard vehicle. Paine owns a RAV4-EV, which highlights another aspect that skews perspective on the issue: GM took the leased vehicles back and consigned them to the scrap bin while Toyota left some of its electrics in the hands of consumers. But Paine claims neither vehicle was “properly marketed,” which apparently means automakers were supposed to convince people that they wanted what they didn’t want.
“Customers are not willing to compromise on things they need,” Bastien told Phelan. “They need cruising range… and they don’t want to wait five hours to recharge. The movie didn’t give any consideration to that fact.”
Neither GM nor Toyota admits to “subverting the program,” but the point is that GM pretty much gets painted as the perpetrator of some great evil for first attempting to meet California’s abortive electric-car mandate—indeed, for striving aggressively to take the lead in the field—and then canceling the program when there was insufficient interest. Other electric-car producers—not only Toyota but also Honda—get a free pass for behaving in essentially the same manner.
In another recent development on this front, the U.S. EPA finally signed on with California’s earlier regulatory rules that allow fuel cells in place of batteries to qualify as “zero emissions” vehicles. GM is now striving to become a leader in fuel cell vehicles, employing a lot of what it learned by pushing the limits of electric propulsion technology with EV1. The film suggests fuel cells are a red herring used to kill off battery electrics.
It would have been interesting to hear the opinions of Dave Hermance, the champion of hybrid programs as Toyota’s executive engineer for advanced technology vehicles, on this revival of the electric-car debate. Unfortunately, we lost him Nov. 25 when he crashed his private plane while practicing aerobatics over the Pacific near San Pedro, California. Hermance had worked for GM for 26 years, much of it in the Vehicle Emissions Laboratory, before joining Toyota in 1991. He was passionate about this stuff, articulate, and most importantly in this context, fair and accurate with his facts."
GM’s EV1, said Paine, was the “iconic” electric car while Toyota’s RAV4-EV was basically a conversion on a standard vehicle. Paine owns a RAV4-EV, which highlights another aspect that skews perspective on the issue: GM took the leased vehicles back and consigned them to the scrap bin while Toyota left some of its electrics in the hands of consumers. But Paine claims neither vehicle was “properly marketed,” which apparently means automakers were supposed to convince people that they wanted what they didn’t want.
“Customers are not willing to compromise on things they need,” Bastien told Phelan. “They need cruising range… and they don’t want to wait five hours to recharge. The movie didn’t give any consideration to that fact.”
Neither GM nor Toyota admits to “subverting the program,” but the point is that GM pretty much gets painted as the perpetrator of some great evil for first attempting to meet California’s abortive electric-car mandate—indeed, for striving aggressively to take the lead in the field—and then canceling the program when there was insufficient interest. Other electric-car producers—not only Toyota but also Honda—get a free pass for behaving in essentially the same manner.
In another recent development on this front, the U.S. EPA finally signed on with California’s earlier regulatory rules that allow fuel cells in place of batteries to qualify as “zero emissions” vehicles. GM is now striving to become a leader in fuel cell vehicles, employing a lot of what it learned by pushing the limits of electric propulsion technology with EV1. The film suggests fuel cells are a red herring used to kill off battery electrics.
It would have been interesting to hear the opinions of Dave Hermance, the champion of hybrid programs as Toyota’s executive engineer for advanced technology vehicles, on this revival of the electric-car debate. Unfortunately, we lost him Nov. 25 when he crashed his private plane while practicing aerobatics over the Pacific near San Pedro, California. Hermance had worked for GM for 26 years, much of it in the Vehicle Emissions Laboratory, before joining Toyota in 1991. He was passionate about this stuff, articulate, and most importantly in this context, fair and accurate with his facts."
Thursday, January 04, 2007
More Loggin than Bloggin
With mild weather and working through lists of year-end and year-beginning tasks, I've tended to do more time in the woods than with words.
Mid 40's (weather) so it end's up being shirtsleeves for a couple hours of cutting slash (the scrap from logging) and limbing trees. Good exercise (Lord knows I need it) and fresh air. Slinging saw or limber (small chainsaw on long pole), and tossing logs/branches etc.
Winter will return sometime, then it'll be indoors stuff.
Mid 40's (weather) so it end's up being shirtsleeves for a couple hours of cutting slash (the scrap from logging) and limbing trees. Good exercise (Lord knows I need it) and fresh air. Slinging saw or limber (small chainsaw on long pole), and tossing logs/branches etc.
Winter will return sometime, then it'll be indoors stuff.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Monday, January 01, 2007
Climate Debate
Finally (?) a voice of reason.
While I've been a skeptic on the issue of Global "Warming", over the holidays, I read James Lovelock's book: The Revenge of Gaia: Earth's Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity
I'd read his original Gaia work, and have followed his and others writings.
Finally, the picture is becoming clearer.
Mankind's activities are not the primary cause, only a contributing cause.
I may quote from Lovelock's work later, after a re-read, but what I took away is that Gaia has maintained a series of stable, self-reinforcing conditions on planet earth since soon after life emerged.
When the young sun was cooler, the earth was kept warm, as the sun has grown hotter, mechanisms or feedback systems have helped keep the earth cooler, hospitable to life as we know it.
Changes in the "Solar Flux" as well as periodic fluctuations of the Earth's orbit, have led to long term as well as cyclical trends in the Global Climate.
Massive changes in the atmosphere have occurred (large variations in CO2, shift to an Oxygen rich (poisonous) ) but life (Gaia) has adapted.
Now we have a period where human activity, including burning of sequestered hydrocarbons and clearing (often by burning in the 3rd world) of forests. This becomes a perturbation of the feedback forces and may lead to a shift to some other "stable state".
We may indeed face warmer conditions, rising sea levels, but it’s not like this has never happened before. Humans have adapted before, and will again.
Then comes a most interesting piece in today's NYTimes, knocking extremes on both sides of the issue: Middle Stance Emerges in Debate Over Climate
"Amid the shouting lately about whether global warming is a human-caused catastrophe or a hoax, some usually staid climate scientists in the usually invisible middle are speaking up.
The discourse over the issue has been feverish since Hurricane Katrina. Seizing the moment, many environmental campaigners, former Vice President Al Gore and some scientists have portrayed the growing human influence on the climate as an unfolding disaster that is already measurably strengthening hurricanes, spreading diseases and amplifying recent droughts and deluges.
Conservative politicians and a few scientists, many with ties to energy companies, have variously countered that human-driven warming is inconsequential, unproved or a manufactured crisis.
A third stance is now emerging, espoused by many experts who challenge both poles of the debate.
They agree that accumulating carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping smokestack and tailpipe gases probably pose a momentous environmental challenge, but say the appropriate response is more akin to buying fire insurance and installing sprinklers and new wiring in an old, irreplaceable house (the home planet) than to fighting a fire already raging."
Read it.
BTW: Lovelock is in the camp that favors Nukes and dislikes ideas like wind-power as misguided. And kudo's to him for giving favorable nod to technology in the form of communication, such as cellphones, laptops and the internet. Talk, don't travel.
While I've been a skeptic on the issue of Global "Warming", over the holidays, I read James Lovelock's book: The Revenge of Gaia: Earth's Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity
I'd read his original Gaia work, and have followed his and others writings.
Finally, the picture is becoming clearer.
Mankind's activities are not the primary cause, only a contributing cause.
I may quote from Lovelock's work later, after a re-read, but what I took away is that Gaia has maintained a series of stable, self-reinforcing conditions on planet earth since soon after life emerged.
When the young sun was cooler, the earth was kept warm, as the sun has grown hotter, mechanisms or feedback systems have helped keep the earth cooler, hospitable to life as we know it.
Changes in the "Solar Flux" as well as periodic fluctuations of the Earth's orbit, have led to long term as well as cyclical trends in the Global Climate.
Massive changes in the atmosphere have occurred (large variations in CO2, shift to an Oxygen rich (poisonous) ) but life (Gaia) has adapted.
Now we have a period where human activity, including burning of sequestered hydrocarbons and clearing (often by burning in the 3rd world) of forests. This becomes a perturbation of the feedback forces and may lead to a shift to some other "stable state".
We may indeed face warmer conditions, rising sea levels, but it’s not like this has never happened before. Humans have adapted before, and will again.
Then comes a most interesting piece in today's NYTimes, knocking extremes on both sides of the issue: Middle Stance Emerges in Debate Over Climate
"Amid the shouting lately about whether global warming is a human-caused catastrophe or a hoax, some usually staid climate scientists in the usually invisible middle are speaking up.
The discourse over the issue has been feverish since Hurricane Katrina. Seizing the moment, many environmental campaigners, former Vice President Al Gore and some scientists have portrayed the growing human influence on the climate as an unfolding disaster that is already measurably strengthening hurricanes, spreading diseases and amplifying recent droughts and deluges.
Conservative politicians and a few scientists, many with ties to energy companies, have variously countered that human-driven warming is inconsequential, unproved or a manufactured crisis.
A third stance is now emerging, espoused by many experts who challenge both poles of the debate.
They agree that accumulating carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping smokestack and tailpipe gases probably pose a momentous environmental challenge, but say the appropriate response is more akin to buying fire insurance and installing sprinklers and new wiring in an old, irreplaceable house (the home planet) than to fighting a fire already raging."
Read it.
BTW: Lovelock is in the camp that favors Nukes and dislikes ideas like wind-power as misguided. And kudo's to him for giving favorable nod to technology in the form of communication, such as cellphones, laptops and the internet. Talk, don't travel.
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