Archive for Life - page 21

-CA screws everyone with carbon tax – wastes the money on bullet train

There is no crisis so grave that it cannot be solved with higher taxes.  Or, in this case carbon offset fees.  You see, global warming is so serious that we have come up with a scheme whereby industries that generate carbon emissions (industries that coincidentally drive our economy) will need to buy “offsets” to allow them to continue their carbon emissions.  It’s a win-win!  They get to pay to stay in business and the State gets a $1 billion payday!  And you get to pay higher prices for electricity, gasoline and probabaly damn near everything you buy.

I think the mafia used to have a program like that: “youse gets to pay us and then youse don’t get your legs broke.  Everybody wins.”  Then the government arrested, prosecuted and jailed the gangsters.  This is known as “eliminating the competition”.

The halls of the Capitol must be positively awash in the saliva of drooling legislators and lobbyists anticipating the new funding that awaits their pet projects.  There’s money a-waitin’ to be spent!  This week it was reported that as part of the budget agreement, California’s High Speed Rail would receive 25% of anticipated cap-and-trade revenue.  Anticipated cap and trade revenue.  We’re going to spend anticipated money on an imaginary train.  We could just replace the state goverment with a Sim City game.  Jerry Brown’s not gonna stand for this foolishness, right?  He’s fiscal hawk!  He wants a rainy day fund!  Oh wait…the crazy train is Jerry Brown’s pet.  He wanted 33% of the cap-and-trade “windfall” to go to the Fresno to Lodi express.  Oh, snap – no adult in the room on this one.

$250 Million probably won’t pay for the paper clips when this boondoggle gets underway.  This is like saying we need to spend $20 Billion to dig a giant hole to throw money in.  But the good news is we get to keep throwing money into it…forever!  And create hundreds of jobs!  Because – transportation!  Trains are the future!

Back in the 70’s when Richard Nixon (R) nearly caused the universe to end by awkwardly covering up some political dirty tricks in the Watergate scandal, there was an episode where it was found that some taped recordings of Oval Office conversations between Nixon and some of the Watergate players contained an 18 minute blank spot.  Anyone familiar with 1970s technology of tape recording could conceive of a legitimate error possibly causing the blank, but foul play was immediately assumed.   This conclusion was most likely correct, and Congress and the public cut Nixon no slack at all.  When threatened with impeachment, Nixon resigned.

Today we learn that as the Congressional inquiry into possible collusion between the White House and the IRS to intimidate, harrass and persecute (and prosecute, for that matter) Republican and Conservative opposition groups, the IRS claims to have lost 2 years worth of e-mails between Lois Lerner and any groups outside of the IRS, such as the White House and Democrat Members of Congress.  But, hey, no big deal.  Accidents happen!  I mean, what big companies and organizations ever take precautions against things like this?  Certainly not the IRS!  Besides – we can trust Barack Obama (D).  See the (D)?  OK then.

Nothing to see here…Move along

You don’t argue with an Aardvark

While I was compiling the previous Goodbye Yellow Brick Road post, I came across the following song from the Tumbleweed Connection album and I had to share it as it is one of my all-time favorite songs.  Enjoy:

My goal with this week’s Music Friday – Yellow Brick Road Edition was to find an artist who is virtually a household name and perhaps introduce you to a few of his more obscure songs from my formative years, which are?  Anyone?   Bueller?  That’s right, the 70’s!  And by way of maintaining the connection to progressive or alt rock, I can tell you that Elton John, while he was still known by his real name Reginald Dwight, once auditioned for lead singer of King Crimson.  And you can’t get any more prog or alt than King Crimson.  Obviously, he did not pass the audition.  Though he teamed up with lyricist Bernie Taupin in the 60’s and his debut album Empty Sky was released in 1969, it was his 1970 album Elton John that established his style and contained his first US Top 100 single, Your Song.  Anyhoo... back to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.  The double album was released in early 1973 to instant critical acclaim, and yielded the hits Bennie and the Jets, Candle In The Wind as well as the title track, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.  If you click on those titles, the link will take you to YouTube where you can listen to those songs.  For my purposes today, I will feature three  songs you may not be familiar with if you haven’t listened to the album tens of thousands of times like I have.  You think I’m exaggerating…

First up:  Harmony (not hominy as someone suggested in the YouTube comments)

Next up:  This Song Has No Title.  Actually is does have a title – that is the title.

Finally we’ll ride off into the sunset with Roy Rogers

Elton John and Bernie Taupin collaborated on something like 30 albums, and they did not work together.  Taupin would write a set of lyrics and then send them, usually through the mail, to John wherever he was.  John would then put the lyrics to music.  Well.. whatever works.  And this works!

…and let slip the dogs of war!

…Wearable Technology!  When I wrote a few days ago about the evolution of wearable technology, I wondered whether a particular need inspired the technology or if  it was the rise of the technology that manifested the need.  And now I have learned of another use for wearable technology: life-logging.

I have never heard of life-logging, and the fact that I am only now learning about it is a bit of a surprise to me.  Though I’m no techie, I don’t live in a cave either.   Maybe I’m in denial about my cave dwelling.  No matter.  But when I read Rachel Metz’s review of 2 life-logging devices in the MIT Technology Review, I learned that certain “data fanatics and academics” have been life-logging since as early as 1994.  

This post isn’t so much about the performance or practicality of the devices – basically small wearable cameras.  If you want that information I suggest you read Ms. Metz’s review here.  This is more about the actual activity of life-logging;  As in what is it and why do it?  Fortunately for me, Ms. Metz provides the needed background in her review.    Life logging is precisely what it sounds like:  logging chronologically, in real time, the events which you area a party to that make up your life, and compiling or cataloging the information into an archive. To achieve this, one wears a device clipped to the clothing or around one’s neck that continually records images.  Not a video recording, but still shots taken at intervals (like the old school security cameras), I suppose because bandwith and storage isn’t (yet) free so some conservation of data is required.   The author reviews two such devices, the Autographer and the  Narrative.

That takes care of the “how”, now on to the “why?”  In 1998 one of the early adopters, Microsoft researcher Gordon Bell, started to collect as much digital information about his life as he could.  His goal?  To create a searchable archive of his memories.  If you think about it, people have been creating archives of their memories to some extent for a long time already.  How many have kept diaries?  Or compiled photos of special events into albums – albums which are now replaced by digital photo archives both online and off.  Camera phones have become ubiquitous and are now readily at hand to record any daily events whether momentous or mundane.  The progression seems logical – from once daily written records, to photographic records of special occasions, to photographic records of many daily events to life-logging: photographic records of all life’s events – compiled into a searchable archive.  So we don’t forget.

To me, this describes the process of creating a substitute memory – one that doesn’t forget or distort the way our organic memories do.  This is a clinical recording of the data that makes up an individual’s life experiences (assuming narration or dialog could be added).  One that will survive once our organic beings cease to exist.  And it could readily be imagined that in some future time the use of this technology might become as common as smartphone use has become today and that more and more people will compile such archives.  Could or would these archives then be compiled into a super archive – the collected memories of humanity?  And if so would that be a good thing?

What effects might this have on us a human beings?  Do we even understand what our memories mean to us?  It is a fact that our memories of events change over time – some traumantic events we forget altogether.  Is there a purpose to this we don’t understand that may be sidestepped by life-logging?  I am on the record as being skeptical of new technology, though history has also shown that I eventually adopt and conform.  History has also shown that technology often evolves from our servant to become our master; and that if technology can be abused, it will be abused.  

So as technology evolves, so do humans evolve.  We adapt to new technologies and increasingly assimilate them into our very being.  In my opinion, we should tread lightly and thoughtfully.

Cross Posted at Men Out Of Work Blog

My post over at Men Out Of Work Blog

Found this video via Althouse.  I have improvised the dialog:

Bumblebee in web:  Bro, do me a solid? (friend, can  you do me a favor, help me out?)

Other Bumblebee: Damn Skippy! (Yes!)

Those sly devils at NASA have been working quietly behind the scenes perfecting their design for a faster than light starship.  According to this article in the UK Daily Mail, NASA reveals warp drive spacecraft designs!  The most important research hurdles have been cleared, and therefore we may be traveling to interstellar destinations in only  a few hundred years.

It has been theorized that faster than light travel is impossible in much the same way it was believed that the sound barrier was impenetrable, but recent breakthroughs have completely changed how the public and journalists view the likelihood of achieving this goal;  We now know that important breakthroughs have brought this accomplishment to the very brink of realization.  The first step toward making this dream a reality was drawing a picture of the proposed spaceship.  Scientists must have said “how can we create warp drive if we don’t have a drawing of a cool spaceship?” Crossing this threshold was such an important first step, artist Mark Rademaker was chosen to complete the task.

Only with this accomplished could the next logical progression  take place, which was to make a movie about interstellar travel.  Not just any movie about how interstellar travel is possible.  A movie showing that interstellar travel is imperative!  To Save Mankind!  With this achievement within reach, only one barrier remains – the discovery of an energy source for the ship.  Scientists are hard at work and have already eliminated some candidates such as Unobtainium and Doesntexistium as not feasible due to their imaginary nature.  After exhausting the search for illusory energy sources, researchers zeroed on on things that actually exist – space and time.  And though there is no process for rendering them into energy, they have achieved the important first step of giving the process a name: “switching on the field”.  This name was chosen for it’s speculative smooth acceleration curve, which also would yield the benefit of allowing the craft to be without seatbelts in order to save precious weight:

“The process of going to warp is also one that is smooth, rather than using a massive amount of acceleration in a short amount of time.  ‘When you turn the field on, everybody doesn’t go slamming against the bulkhead, which would be a very short and sad trip,’ Dr White said.”

Now at last mankind is poised to leap into the great unknown and spread our wisdom, entertainment media and advertising to the farthest reaches of the cosmos!  But can we afford to wait several decades or more to ensure our survival against all those bad things humans have done that will surely wipe us out?  Is it wise to just sit back and hope we make it before Gaia unleashes her certain and terrible revenge upon us?  We have no choice but to wait and find out.

Cross Posted at Men Out Of Work Blog

If there is anyone out there who hasn’t given up on me yet, you may now be a step closer to doing so.  I hear you asking “what is he on about with ignoring the sand in the crotch of life’s swimsuit?”

In my never ending quest to find subjects about which to write or areas where truth may be sought out, I read a blog post at Althouse entitled Why Should We Succumb To What Virginia Postrel Calls The “Seduction” and “Glamour” Of Travel, which was in turn about an article called The Glamour of Getting Away by Virginia Postrel on Medium.com.  One of the points in Postrel’s article which sparked debate at Althouse was an assertion that the “glamour” of travel is what “seduces” us to do it, and that certain air of illusion must be crafted so the aura of glamour isn’t tarnished.  And that illusion of glamour is essential lest we not be seduced.   From the article:

“Glamour can rightly be only a guide, not a destination. If you expect your vacation to be a series of perfectly composed still photos, with no sandy bathing suits, sore feet, or fellow tourists, you won’t have a good time.” 

And then what?  We couldn’t be seduced into traveling anymore?  Not everyone needs to be seduced into traveling – I know I don’t.  A man needn’t be seduced by that which he desires.  I like to travel.  I also like living.  And life, like travel, involves a certain amount of glossing over inconvenient, unattractive or unsavory…*ahem*…circumstances.

Does Postrel have a point in asserting that absent the “glamour” of travel and our vulnerability to it’s seductive charms, we won’t enjoy ourselves?  Indeed is it possible at all to enjoy anything unless we are seduced by the glamour of it?  Will we only partake of those life experiences that can seduce us into action?  Concupiscence aside, I don’t believe that’s so.

To each his own motivations.  Some people may choose to travel, some may not.  If you don’t like taking your shoes off at the airport, or if the prospect of unpleasant odors at your destination chagrines you, then you probably won’t travel.

But if life is a journey, will you stay home?  Because if you want to live your life like a day at the beach – you’ll need to ignore the sand in your shorts.