…Or just crazy.
[People not interested in HEMA can skip down to web links of late. Be forewarned that this entry reads like a Joseph Conrad story printed on cheap, splintery Soviet TP.]
Gawd, CAS Iberia put out some awful thing on sword and shield combat. I won’t link it, b/c it doesn’t deserve any more viewings. It’s already ranked 1/5 on YouTube, thankfully.
OTOH, www.achillemarozzo.it has a number of YouTube clips posted on sword and buckler, round shield, and single.
User Tossetoke has some very cool vids extrapolating Viking shield combat from German fechtmanual techniques. I’ve seen articles before (by e.g. Paul Wagner), but this is the first accurate set of clips I’ve seen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXPujfwQJUg
Or you can do a search for HEMAC 2008 vids. Three guys have posted a fair number of bouts from the longsword tournament. Some terrible footwork, some decent demonstrations of skill (timing, distance, etc.)… Maybe I’ll go next year and show ‘em how an Asian fences. I’ll be the Cuong Le of HEMA!
Other web links perused of late:
http://members.aol.com/illinewek/faqs/casting.htm
http://www.theodoregray.com/periodicTable/Stories/030.1/index.html
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/eng99/eng99519.htm
http://www.rc-soar.com/tech/casting.htm
How the hell can you consume 2900 calories in a single drink?! Most days, I struggle to reach 2200 (assuming crude estimates of 1200 for my main meal, 300 in nuts and dried fruit, and 800 in milk / OJ / assorted no-sugar-added fruit juices).
http://www.menshealth.com/eatthis/20-Worst-Foods/index.php
http://health.yahoo.com/experts/eatthis/5027/americas-unhealthiest-drinks-exposed/
http://health.yahoo.com/weightloss-motivation/how-to-lose-weight-like-a-guy/prevention–23299.html
Go, market corrections.
http://promo.realestate.yahoo.com/five-cities-with-biggest-decline-in-home-values.html
This was happy good webtrawling for combating depression. Started off innocently enough, with searches for ballistic ceramic.
http://www.armorusa.com/Ballistic%20Ceramic%20Composite.htm
This led to a thirst for greater understanding of what NATO peacekeepers can do to misbehaving targets.
http://www.dec.fct.unl.pt/projectos/impacto/Public_Papers/Report%20on%20Ceramic.pdf
The average insurgent often experiences difficulty in procuring B4C ceramic / aramidic-weave polyethylene fiber plates. Morbid curiosity prompted the search for ways to evaluate bullet performance on flesh.
http://www.myscienceproject.org/gelatin.html
In the name of science, the expression denoting unfeasibility “…like nailing Jell-O to a wall,” had to be assessed for veracity.
http://www.myscienceproject.org/j-wall.html
A side jaunt into enzymatic interactions and effect on proteins was called for here.
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/units/activities/proteins/advice.cfm
Busting adages with the liberal application of science.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_%28season_2%29#Needle_in_a_Haystack
Then a resumption of the descent into madness and the merely insipid.
http://www.myscienceproject.org/beer.html
By random link association.
http://www.myscienceproject.org/viagra-flowers.html
The very heart of darkness.
http://www.myscienceproject.org/condoms.html
If you read this far, you need to get a life. If you followed every link, someone should take you out to the pasture and put you out of your misery.
That said, I leave you with a cliffhanger:
The past two months have seen WW I-era Gallic quantities of angst, resignation, fear, sweat, tears, and blood (*mostly* internal lacerations). The blood was from HEMA practices. Everything else was not. Within another month, I should either have stupid-good news, or I’ll be evicted from the poorhouse and put in a Frigidaire box.
It could be worse — I could still be doing door-to-door sales.
Or a year in this case…
Lots of people have said it (including me) — the last one I remember was Kevin:
“Alternative (green) energy represents a fraction of a percent of the overall US energy portfolio.”
Well, that *was* true. (OK, still *is* true, where specifically solar power is still under 0.1% of the $3 trillion global energy market.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/23/business/23wind.html?scp=27&sq=energy&st=nyt
Also, Google solar thermal power generation, which offers potentially $0.10 KWH (currently $0.15 - $0.20 for lack of economies of scale) and is cropping up all over the Southwest.
Three years ago, Texas was 3rd in the wind race — behind CA and .. WA? Well, we’ve been #1 in wind power production since 2006 (after my stint with Green Mountain) — and 3% of the TX energy portfolio is now in wind. I haven’t seen the numbers, but over the past year I’ve seen lots of articles on how quickly we’ve been growing our wind power generation capacity.
Read the article to see what oil tycoon Boone Pickens is gushing about, re: wind power. $10 billion for a wind farm. *Billion*. That’s good spending money, even on an int’l level.
And Nevada, NM, and CA are all not standing still, either.
How did this happen? Hundreds of thousands of individual consumers signed up for “green energy” accounts with the power companies, that’s how. The power of Greyskull is in you!
By damn, exercise the full extent of your power as 0.0000004% of the US voting / consumer population (in practice, probably 5-10 times more than that, since most of the populace is apathetic, thereby weighting your purchasing decisions and actions favorably). And I’m dead serious — *no one* can say that we can’t make a difference, when the past 3 years have seen such huge changes.
(more…)
Sitting here, doing work, I heard some cool instrumentals with a fairly complicated chord progression. Then this seductive voice whispered, “Share your dreams with someone you love.”
Quick check revealed that Beautiful Voices (episode 006) was playing. Usually frustrating, b/c these mixes can go on for an hour or so. But I said, “Google don’t fails me now!” Found the mix track listing for once. This one has 16 songs in it, and the one I wanted was Jason Tyrello, “Share Your Dreams” (Dreamzone Mix). I would have sworn it was Blank & Jones, but they’re playing now — 3 songs later in the mix.
Check out the “server virtualization” and “fight standby” items on wecandothis.com.
This is a year old now, but I stumbled across it on another search on costing: Total costs of the war in Iraq may be between $1 to $2 trillion. We want smaller government programs, but I don’t think we’ll get it long-term from the current government or its supporters. I was going to link http://www.cbpp.org/1-4-05socsec.htm as supporting evidence, but a Google check indicates that they have a spotty track record (an $13m annual budget being nonindicative of reputability). The link seems to read sensibly and knowledgeably, but I’m a n00b at this kind of numbers-juggling. I include it here unlinked FYI, but you’re forewarned.
For perspective, note that the presidential hopefuls are all bagging on Hillary Clinton’s health care plan with a proposed cost of $110 billion (per year?). Considering costs of the war incurred to date (something like $500 billion), her plan is on par with Bush’s annual war spending, and I suspect that more people would benefit from her health plan than from the war.
Note that I’m not blaming Republicans or Democrats. Chuck Hagel is against the war, for sensible reasons of monetary and human cost. Note that I’m linking a fun but fair assessment of him; the reader can check more official sources for a complete picture of the guy.
Zooming in from that orbital view, here’s something interesting regarding quality of soldiers and their costs. Not to mention the increased danger that comes with working alongside incompetent people.
Other random weblinks of interest:
Combat lasers + battlefield robots = Terminators! Global Security’s director, John Pike, makes a provocative comment at the bottom on just the robot aspect — “This opens up great vistas, some quite pleasant, others quite nightmarish. On the one hand, this could make our flesh-and-blood soldiers so hard to get to that traditional war — a match of relatively evenly matched peers — could become a thing of the past,” he said. “But this might also rob us of our humanity. We could be the ones that wind up looking like Terminators, in the world’s eyes.”
On a different note, we were talking in the commencement line about costs of living and business. One guy next to me said that Indonesian labor costs his company $1500 / mo, but you fly a few hours to Bangladesh, and it’s $60 / mo.
It reminds me of how real estate in Hanoi (capital city of Vietnam) is on par with New York City and Tokyo, despite GDP per capita of … <searching CIA World Factbook>
!!!
‘Scuse me whilst I go peel my eyebrows off the ceiling…
<minutes later>
OK, so Vietnam’s GDP / capita in 2002 when I went was $325 (2000 data). But as of 2006, it was $3100!
Still makes Hanoi’s real estate flippin’ expensive, but .. wow. Well, there you go. Go, little SE Asian Tigers.
And on another unrelated note, Nicole told me yesterday how she went out on a Habitat for Humanity thing, and how that gave her a new appreciation for my metalworking. They were putting nails in pressure-treated wood, and a lot of the hammering had to be done parallel to the ground rather than down into the ground. The old hands could drive the big, 6″ nails in with 5-6 hammer strokes, but she took something like 20 strokes per. Plus the usual initial wiffs and bent nails. But she figured it out fairly quickly, and the veterans were praising the accuracy of her work by the end of the day. The lesson: hammerwork is hard work!
<shrugs>
Eh, a little, maybe. But I said I figure she’s more able than I at calculating fluid dynamics and thrust output from rocket engines, so we’re more than square. She’s more marketable, after all. :) (pun intended)
We *can* make a difference!
Never believe you can’t improve the world. Take the stairs. Buy local produce. Don’t drink bottled water (it’s got higher fecal matter content than tap, anyway). In the words of Yul Brynner (The King and I), “Et cetera, et cetera!”
Until 2005, I believed like many others that I couldn’t make a difference. Now, when I hear others say that, I don’t know how to prove what I’ve learned — that what I do does impact my world. Well, here’s proof that my call made some tiny difference:
“Just moments ago the House passed its version of the Energy Bill (H.R. 6) by a vote of 235 - 181. The bill includes an increase in the fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks — the first since 1975 — and a renewable electricity standard that would require utilities to produce 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Also, the House took out a provision added in the Senate that would have put the financial risk of building new nuclear power plants on taxpayers. All in all it’s a pretty good bill and a definite step in the right direction.”
I haven’t personally seen any news items yet to confirm it, but yee-ha!
That’s, what, 54% — a pretty decent margin.
Some info about what HR 6 does for / inflicts on us:
http://rismedia.com/wp/2007-12-06/alliance-urges-bill-with-higher-cafe-tax-incentives-appliance-standards/
Yes, it does raise costs of business for manufacturers, but if they don’t change / improve their business processes and products, they’ll become increasingly marginalized — the Studebakers and DeSotos of the 21st century. Japan already outproduces us in the auto industry. All the noise about profit margins is just a child screaming b/c he doesn’t want to take his medicine. (Well, there’s more to it than that, but we’re not going down that rant — er, road.)
And the main site I go to:
http://www.moveon.org/
I use a couple others to cross-check my facts, but I find them all through Google.
The very facts that we have stores like Whole Foods, and that companies like Toyota, BP, and even Wal-Mart are making strategic decisions the way they are — these all demonstrate the differences we can make. It’s a crazy powerful feeling to be even a tiny part of such a huge progressive movement.
To celebrate, I think I’m going to go call my reps in Congress and the Senate again about Internet radio royalties.
On a sidenote:
I remembered another tidbit from Karl’s dinner party. Xander mentioned that there’s an enormous plastic trash heap in the Pacific. Something to do with prevailing currents and gyres.
[Update: Nooo! Curse you, U.S. Senate!]
So some other topics we visited at Karl’s party…
Xander also described exactly and more fully what I’ve vaguely believed these past few years about a U.S. economic recession. What is good for the whole can be painful for the individual, and vice versa. It’s always easier and more pleasant to have a discussion in which all parties are fundamentally in accordance, but I don’t think we’re just reading tea leaves here:
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2007/02/index.htm
“…although the real effective U.S. dollar is still estimated to be above its medium-term fundamental value, valuation gains cannot be relied on to stabilize the liability stock going forward.” (p. 75)
And then we hit on why fat people increase our exposure risk vis-à-vis oil consumption and cost, cars, etc. I’ll let these links do the talking:
http://www.news.uiuc.edu/NEWS/06/1024auto.html
“The key finding is that nearly 1 billion gallons of fuel are consumed each year because of the average weight gain of people living in the United States since 1960 – nearly three times the total amount of fuel consumed by all passenger vehicles each day based on current driving habits,” McLay and Jacobson wrote.
We thought it was The Economist that broke research on fat people, but it turns out it’s The Engineering Economist. Close enough for me to find it.
http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10249454&top_story=1http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/337534_carsonline01.html
…And the total cost of obesity is a lot more than $2.8 bn, when you factor in health care costs, etc.
http://www.super-solutions.com/RisingHealthCareCost_WorkplaceStress.asp#Obesity
http://www.rti.org/newsroom/news.cfm?nav=442&objectid=C13A6B12-1732-4D0D-ACA2C1E3F09E04A9
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/hlthaff.w4.480/DC1
Some quick math says that fat people are costing each of us $622 — averaged across *all* working Americans. 62% of Americans are obese — you can do the math from there. Less overweight people will incur lower costs, and etc.
My current PK / ba gua kick started when I discovered to my mild horror that I am 195 lbs these days. That’s a BMI of 29, which is overweight. I knew I was, slightly, despite what anyone tried to say. I see the truth of it whenever I get in the shower. :P
No need to flog the dead horse further. The important thing is: What are we willing to do about it? I cast no stones here. But I am working (not just hoping) to raise my long-term avg weekly workout hours to 10 (leaving 4-6 for shop work) and raise the intensity level of that workout time as well.
I won’t suggest how anyone else can do it, though. We each need to find our own ways.
Higher bonuses than ever, in the face of worsening performance?
That’s a clear symptom of the final theoretical 3rd wave in Dow Theory.
I’ve had bearish feelings every time I read about how the current administration waves its hands and points at Iraq every time economic issues come up. I predicted the housing slowdown within 2-3 years to my parents in 2004 (and that was *before* I really started following finance news more carefully), and now there’s this reported symptom. Pessimistic view through to 2009 (current downside potential to 11,000 unlikely; more likely over time, but downside will rise to 12,500 by 2009). I’ll be curious to look back two years from now and see if this was accurate.
Whatever, I was going to blither on about it, but who cares?
I have to go promote the military-industrial complex. B/c it and health care / insurance do well in uncertain times.
[Listening to Workbench, “Air Cargo”]
Oorgh.. Must cut 8 more minutes off presentation… I keep clocking in at a hair over 30 mins. 30 info-dense slides. Not sure it can be done. Must… hack and slash.
“War and uncertainty loom large!”
“Buy defense sector stocks!”
“Buy, buy, buy!”
Cripes. OK, break, then one more pass before I pass out.
The IPCC’s AR4 Summary for Policymakers is out. It’s like a State of the Environment address every 5 years.
It’s an extremely compact document. Like having 0.5% body fat. Fairly readable, since it is intended for politicians, not lawyers or scientists.
Some say we’re already beyond the IPCC’s worst case scenario. I say so what? All we can do is the best we can do. So ignore that and let’s look at what we can do:
Whole Foods has 30 ways to make a reasonably easy effort.
Plant a tree (for those with yards).
Strive to avoid extensively packaged products. Aim to reduce your monthly garbage output by 10%. I could do it by going cold turkey on prepared snacks (which aren’t good for me anyway, like chips and goldfish crackers). The rest of my output tends to result from allergies, so that’ll be a bit more challenging to reduce. I think I only take out one grocery bag of trash every 2 weeks, anyway.
I reuse all my coke machine soda cartons in various ways. Formerly, they were a major source of cardboard for armor patterning. And whether pattern-cut or not, it all eventually goes to the recycling center in monthly drop-offs en route to school.
Greenstyle Magazine put out a list of 101 things (from piddly to life-changing) you can do to green up.
Got an LCD monitor yet?
Avoid drivethroughs.
Eat less meat.
Skip the bottled water (or at least reuse the bottles like some people I know do). This one is huge. Stupid big. I appreciate the water snobbery, b/c I am one. That’s why I ruthlessly recycle my bottles for drinking, then for sharp cutting practice, then I finally recycle them monthly. And anyone who’s seen me at practice or an event knows I have that obnoxiously modern Nalgene bottle. Leather wrapping. Someday. Gulf Wars? Reasonable target.
Bring your own bags (cloth or otherwise) to the grocery store. I use my 4 Windrose Armoury bags for that.
My friend and WMA partner of 6 years, Chris C., is as near to a paragon of environmentalism as I know or can tolerate. :) He was on Green Mountain back when rates were $.08 / KWH and he paid $.23 / KWH (it certainly discouraged high usage, in addition to being green). Soon as he got his new job, he ditched the old Pontiac for a Prius. He’s been bringing his own cloth bags and tupperware containers to Whole Foods for as long as I’ve known him. One of my skeptical friends thought he was just another big talker, until we went out after practice one night, and we observed Chris being his normal, low impact self.
He’ll never know I wrote this, but I’ve always admired him for it.
Yeah, there’re no doubt greener folks in Austin, but I live in Houston, and we’re trying.
And I loved the fact that there were 2 Prii at Roses (Maaggie and .. I don’t know if the other Prius’s owners are on Xanga). But go you. You guys are making it possible for people like me to buy a used one in 5 years. :) Well, that may or may not be sensible, with the rumors of expensive battery replacement. I’ll do more thorough research when I get closer to replacing my soul-blackening SUV (that has served me well and with only moderate complaints these past 7 years).
[For the romantics among you, have a listen at Kissing, by Bliss.
I’m sooo glad I found out who it was by — for 3 years, I only had a 74-minute techno chill mix with the song in it.]
Take a look:
(Senator Clinton’s full plan; a short, easy read)
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/energy/
Let her know you support it (if you do):
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/action/energyplan/
The Democrats have set out some really challenging (but feasible) targets on green and energy issues. I think that they’re a big step in the right direction (and the Republicans won’t be the first ones to stand for good, Christian stewardship of God’s earth so *someone* has to do it). And the plan appeals to the non-green-minded populace as well, with creation of 5 million jobs (primarily higher-tech, I might add), and $20 billion to help out the auto industry in this direction. But obviously, if they get Senator Clinton into office, horse-trading with the Republicans will water down and rein in some of them.
It’s still better than dicking around in the desert with boys and their toys.
I see the side of my pro-gun / libertarian friends, but when it comes right down to it, I believe more in the greater good than my own need for pro-gun platforms. I intend to be around in 2030 (and beyond), and I’d like to help make some real progress away from things like that direly blue and toxic SPF 2000 stuff from the Max Headroom / Mad Max / whatever movie. And since the Democrats are pro-choice, that makes my choice even easier. On that note…
For an interesting perspective on crime, did you know that NYC is America’s safest large city, at 6.9 murders / 100,000 people? Washington DC has 20.9/100k (29.1 if you go by the FBI’s 2005 figures). London has 2.4/100k murders. (These are 2006 figures)
On the flipside, London’s total crime index is 946/100k. DC’s is 6162/100k.
And the London papers are screaming about how unsafe the city is compared to the rest of the UK (roughly twice the national crime rate). <cocked eyebrow>
Rates of murders/total crimes seem in line with each other. I found some other news articles (one from the BBC, no less) that had really wacky numbers — 14,000 crimes / 100k pop in London in 2000.
There is no way London’s crime could have gone from 14k/100k to less than 1k/100k in 7 years. And it also means that 1.4 in 10 people were victimized annually. That’s not a city — that’s a warzone. It’s not possible even if an armada of flying Portuguese Man-O-Wars reached down out of the sky with their magic tentacles to promote hooliganism in London’s boisterous youth.
Oddly, the official Metro police report says there were 12,500 crimes against the person in 2000. I suspect someone misinterpreted raw totals with per-100,000 population index figures.
So do we need guns? Yes, if the 14k/100k figure is correct (but I haven’t found any other sources to support that huge number). Otherwise, no. It would appear that we are in fact better off living in a police state — I make this claim only where violent crime is concerned. :P
I didn’t check my number further b/c it is late and I felt I’d sufficiently cross-checked my facts and sources. :P
That said, I don’t plan on giving up my guns, present or future, any time soon. I *like* 7.62 x 39, thank you. I just think gun ownership doesn’t substantively correlate with increased personal safety on a societal level. And without proper close combat training, can be a hazard in self- or home-defense situations. In short, I think people should be able to responsibly own guns, but they shouldn’t argue that the guns promote personal safety.
Sources:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article407900.ece (2006 numbers)
http://www.met.police.uk/crimefigures/index.php (for 2000 and 2006)
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/dccrime.htm (supposedly sourcing its data in turn from the FBI, Uniform Crime Reports) (for 2000 and 2006 numbers)
http://www.london.gov.uk/gla/publications/factsandfigures/factsfigures/population.jsp (for 2001 census figures)
Intelligent counterpoint source (Lott, J. and Mustard, D. Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns, University of Chicago, 1996.):
http://christianparty.net/gunstudy.htm
Alas, the research paper is hosted by an iffy site.
[Don’t know why I periodically write these things. It’s interesting, but kinda pointless, to see where I come from and how absurd past positions were.]
I thought I was living in the U.S., the most advanced nation in the world…
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/071009-kaguya-update.html
http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2007/11/20071107_kaguya_movie_e.html
Sure, a moon probe by itself doesn’t mean anything. But the fact that these countries are really getting into the swing of pure space exploration (sending anything to the moon is currently a 9-figure loss, with no commercial benefits) means they have economic power and brains to spare.
So admittedly the Nikkei, at 17,000, has yet to reach 50% of where it last peaked at 38,000 in the ’80s. I’m, for once, trying to not be all sensationalistic about this. China (especially), India, and Japan have all come a long way since the ’70s, but http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10102893 says it’s not time to hide the women and the liquor just yet, ‘cos the Hottentots aren’t out to eradicate us — just make some big bucks and tech growth off us.
In the medium term, it’ll be pretty exciting and cool to see which countries grow to give the U.S. some more competition. Japan officially has the world’s second largest economy ($4.2 trillion to the US’s $13 trillion), but by purchasing power parity, China effectively has a $10 trillion GDP. India lags behind Japan by a hair at $4.16 trillion. (All this is out of a global economy worth $65 trillion, so the U.S. has a pretty nice slice out of 194 countries.)
Growth-wise, China has been giving us all a pasting at 11%. India’s just behind at 9%. Those are *amazing* numbers at the level of nation-states. 3% seems to be about typical (we’re at 2.9%). Japan’s the big loser at 2.2%.
The European Union combined manages to edge out the U.S. by $20 billion, but they’re not quite that coordinated yet.
(All numbers from 2006)
And a rising tide floats all boats, so here’s hoping the world overall does well and manages its growth effectively (runaway growth leads to crashes).
But we in the U.S. probably don’t want to get left behind, turned into a tech backwater reliant upon tourism and olive oil exports. Oh, wait. That’s Spain. Admittedly, Spain’s been doing well for itself since Franco kicked the bucket in ‘75, but it’s in 14th place and the last of the $1+ trillion economies. Canada, South Korea, Brazil, and even Mexico all beat out Spain — whose armadas and empire once spanned the globe.
Growth trends can be looked at a lot of ways:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dow_theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_life_cycle
But in a nutshell, you have the innovators (or people present at inception) who kick off something. Then you have the early adopters (or people in the know) who further contribute to sales growth, influence, power, whatever. Finally, you have the late adopters (i.e. the ignorant masses) who finally catch on that they’re missing out on something cool.
Unfortunately, the first phase is where the biggest action happens. The second phase may push total sales, influence, reach, power, etc. up further, but the impulse isn’t as big as in the first movement. The third phase is where the product or activity becomes commonplace. In terms of stocks, this final peak tends to be lower than the second peak.
But people only perceive that something is big once it’s in the second phase, moving into the third, by which point it’s already relatively in decline. Not necessarily in real quantities, but in influence or power or growth.
So Rome, Spain, et al were at their most colorful and grandiose at that point, when their growth had long ceased to be dynamic. And then when the slide down into obscurity happened, it caught people by surprise, b/c we see what is, rather than what will be. It’s easier to perceive the current quantity, than to calculate future growth. Or even to predict where something with constant velocity will be instead of something with even a simple, constant rate of acceleration (or deceleration). That last point ties into WMA and martial arts very well, BTW, but you won’t hear the gory details from me. :P
And I could make some sort of cautionary tale out of this, but I doubt the U.S. is going to collapse in 20 years or anything like that.
But the really important thing is that everybody needs to get sorted out, long-term. Lots of growth will lead to increased competition for a shrinking pool of resources. And when people can’t get their fuel, food and cheap entertainment, they get cranky. Like genocidal war kind of cranky. I like to cite Diamond’s book Collapse, wherein he says that the lists of top 10 places in the world with critical environmental problems (including overpopulation) also happen to be the top 10 politically unstable places. He gives a solid argument for reasons why, but I won’t repeat it here.
Zero-population growth and stabilizing per capita consumption are pretty much the *only* way to do it, medium to long-term. Longer-term, technological growth will let us do more with less, thereby effectively making the pie bigger, so that people’s relative slices stay the same but the real amount of fruity goodness increases. But that’s the work of decades, not fashion seasons.
Weird experiences lately. But hopefully my scanty readership will find this entry a bit more level-headed than some of my more … unhinged rantings of late. Sorry I’ve been such a meat sack of emotions. Actually, no, I’m not sorry. I’m not answerable to any of you people for how I feel. :P
Moving on… Ever since Irene introduced me to MoveOn.org (a ha, ha, ha), I’ve kept up a bit more on what our govt’s been doing on the clean energy front. It started off mostly b/c I wanted to independently confirm that MoveOn’s calls to action were in fact in my own best interests.
And so, while I could do without a war and further saber-rattling, I only pitch in on the clean energy stuff. I’ve called my representatives a couple times now about HR 3221, and pretty soon they’re going to be like, “Somebody block this guy.”
From other sources, I also pitch in on the net radio issue.
Well, it’s gotten me to read the news more often, even if it is primarily searching Google news for “energy bill” and “internet radio”.
To personally do some real good, though, I’ve heard from Mark, Chris, and an archi college friend David about current real opportunities in environmentally-related business. And Myfanwy, Colsith, and Pug gave me a lead, some helpful info over the weekend. Most of it is going down in the energy and construction sectors, with brown field and water (waste or otherwise) treatment coming in behind them. And the current state of the industry is that many people with years of other professional experience (as project managers, consultants, etc.) are coming to the green industry. It’s not big or mature enough on its own to have dedicated entry-level positions.
One thing in particular I’m starting to read up on is LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification. Becoming a LEED-AP (Accredited Professional) is a very desireable thing, as a consequence of requirements in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act regarding transparency in reporting on environmental risks that may impact business value for investors. So all the roaches are scuttling to clean up or cover up their problems.
Whether my career interests can be served now or later by getting LEED-accredited, is what I’m trying to figure out.
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