Archive for September, 2007

2007.09.06

World Beer Hunter: RIP

In what seems like ages ago, I worked at Discovery Channel in their now defunct interactive media department. Looking at the titles at the last link I realize I worked on most of them. Two of the titles were called The Beer Hunter and World Beer Hunter. Both of these titles were created with British writer Michael Jackson (I know, an unfortunately similar name to some pop star). This man knew more about beer than almost anyone else on Earth, and had a great sense of humor. There’s no one I would have loved to have a pint and talk about beer with than Mr. Jackson.

Sadly, I just learned that he passed away. My thoughts go out to his family, friends and mates at his favourite pub. The world of beer has lost a great proponent. Tonight I will have a pint of Boddingtons in his honor.

2007.09.05

Alarm Clock Reboot

I’m not a morning person, unless by morning person you mean the time I prefer to be going to bed. Unfortunately my jobs require me to be there in the morning. You know, the time I would prefer to be sleeping. I’ve tried all kinds of coping methods but none work. So to combat oversleeping I have two alarm clocks set to go off at different times. Both of them are really loud and programmed to go off at slightly different times. One is set to an annoying buzzer and the other to the radio. Despite the advice of others I have not placed the alarm clocks across the room. They would go off and I would find coping methods for ignoring them.

It’s hard enough to hear the alarms as it is. Somehow my brain simply doesn’t hear the alarms going off. My arm does, however. I can imagine it languidly reaching over and lightly tapping the snooze button. Eventually my brain does realize the alarm is going off and forces the rest of my body, aside from my already active arm, to move out of the bed and into the shower. This system works pretty well for me but kind of like drugs I get used to it and reaction times get slower and slower. Eventually I find I’m late for work. Late is not good.

My compensating method for this isn’t to set the alarms a little bit earlier. The crocodile part of my nervous system knows when I’ve changed the alarm clock. Ironically if I change the time forward 10 or 15 minutes I do fool my brain. It’s so stupid! Wait, that’s me… Anyways, I add a few minutes every couple weeks to compensate for my tolerance for the blaring.

Not long ago someone pointed out to me that my clocks were off. “I know,” I told them. Then they pointed out that they weren’t just a little off. They were over an hour fast. “I didn’t know that!”

So last night I rebooted my alarm clocks. they are now set to the correct time. Last night before going to bed I told myself over and over, Don’t forget the alarm clocks are rebooted. Don’t forget the bloody alarm clocks have the right bloody time now. It seems to have worked. I just have to keep telling myself that for the next week or so, otherwise I’ll be getting to work around lunch time everyday.

And at that point it won’t be a reboot but a boot I’ll be getting. So here’s to hoping the alarm clocks continue to work.

2007.09.04

Farmageddon

What led to our human ancestors to start in on agriculture? Some say it was a natural evolution but more signs are pointing to farmageddon.

Nearly 13,000 years ago a comet exploded above or slammed into Lake Agassiz in North America. At the time this lake contained more freshwater than all the current lakes in the world combined. All of this freshwater -which was very very cold- rushed out into the Atlantic and effectively stopped the Gulf Stream and plunged much of the northern hemisphere into a mini-iceage. This period is called the Younger Dryas and it is considered by many to be the instigator in our ancestors cultivating the land.

Because the climate was getting cooler the people in parts of the world, who had already started minimal forms of agriculture, had little choice but to continue with the practice as game and native plants they might gather receded. The result is, arguably, our modern cultures with all it’s benefits (and problems). And we have a rogue comet to thank for it. Sadly I don’t think we would be so lucky a second time around…

2007.09.03

Dubious of Space?

I was going to put this in the comments of this article in response to some of NHK’s comments. Instead, as it got long, I decided to put it up here as a post.

We thump the daylights out of our planet because we have several hundered generations of little need to be efficient, to just dump our crap wherever and whenever we wanted. Despite the best efforts of many our recycling is something of a joke, water conservation is more than a crisis in many places, nutrition is an issue for most people on the planet and for where it isn’t consumerism is rampant.

To solve these problems we need a new paradigm and that shift isn’t going to happen here where, especially in affluent nations that actually have the power (intellectually and monetarily) can do something about it. The Earth is a finite resource and yet most treat it as an infinite resource, either with what can be taken or with simple human population.

So tell me, where is the one place -despite its seeming infinite size- where the only real resources we have are either what we bring or what we build from literally nothing?

Space.

In space we have to learn to recycle everything. Food, water, waste, air, everything. You will not find a better laboratory for this than in the closed environment of a space craft. If you are interested in finding alternate energy look no further than human habitation of space. There is no free cheap high-energy sources of energy like oil up there. We have to find other modes of powering everything.

Just these two examples have direct benefit for everyone living here, including the Earth itself. What we can learn in terms of efficiency and living within finite resources alone is worth it. That we will be building out new technologies that will have similar potential benefits is a bonus. You won’t find many other venues where this is true.

2007.09.01

It’s A Dirty Shame

A Dirty ShameIt amazes me what is supposedly shocking on film in America. Tonight I watched A Dirty Shame from director John Waters. The movie got an NC-17 rating. This means no one, under any circumstances, under the age of 17 is allowed in the theater to see this flick. Why?

Because it talks about sex.

There’s not a violent scene in this movie unless you count a squirrel accidentally getting run over by car. But there is a lot of talk about sex. Sexual positions, sexual fetishes, sexual insanity, sex fiends. There are exactly two real boobs on screen for the whole move and, if memory serves, two penises. Otherwise the sex, in a physical sense, is only implied and never shown. Incidentally the squirrel is saved.

Selma Blair as
Caprice SticklesSo why the NC-17 rating? Could it have been Selma Blair’s character’s ridiculously HUGE boobs? Could it have been the over-the-top juvenile humor? Seriously, Porky’s had an R rating with loads of boobies all over the screen and despite the silliness of American Pie it still had far more explicit sex.

Yes, I’m aware they made an R version of the movie, but honestly the NC-17 version of the movie isn’t that bad at all. I can’t imagine what they cut out to make it an R…

Whatever, if you liked either of those movies you’re likely to really like A Dirty Shame, too. I know I did. Thanks to NHK for introducing it to me. If you’re interested you can pick it up at Amazon!

2007.09.01

The New Space Race

In case you’ve been asleep these past several years (decades?), the space race never ended and pressure is building right now as countries that were in no position 30 years ago to compete with America and, at that time, Russia continue to strive outwards. In 1969 America put a man on the moon which should have heralded a period of instant human dominance of space. Instead we pulled back. While America is still the strongest player in human forays into space there are plenty of players coming on strong. China, India, Japan, Europe and Russia are all pressing on while I get the impression America, despite its considerable successes, is losing its ambition. All the plans and rhetoric in the world won’t amount to squat if we don’t actually do something.

I have made no secret of the fact that I think getting humanity out in space and beyond the confines of Earth is a mandatory goal for the survival of the human species. Afterall, all it would take is an asteroid or two to kill us off. Further, I think it’s important to define the culture that will prevail as we push out. Will it be a culture that supresses its people (China, Russia) or one that believes in freedom and human dignity (America, Europe and a few others)?

Russia has just announced its intentions of building a permanent lunar base. They join China, India, Japan and others. Russia has been recently flexing its muscles and China recently successfully shot down a satellite. Combined with these country’s remarkable lack of human rights, clean democracies and abundance of crime and need to prove themselves on the world stage, I worry about them gaining a permanent foothold in space.

I know it seems possibly paranoid on my part to worry about these things, but once a nation dominates space, that nation’s culture will dominate the future of humanity simply by spreading their culture to new environments and worlds. Further, depending on their priorities, once established in space it would be almost trivial to prevent other nations from attaining a foothold in space through military actions. Ultimately I care about the survival of humanity beyond natural (ie. asteroid impact, etc) and human destruction (ie. global warming, resource depletion, catastrophic war, etc) of this world I also worry about the future culture of the human species. I think you should to. If it were possible to make space truly international I would be for this. Any student of history will see the difficulty (amounting to impossibility) of this ultimate dream despite best efforts. So in the meantime I choose us.

Other interesting articles I found while scouring for links in this post… A nice summary of the China/Japan space rivalry. Another article about China… Since America shut down their application to join the International Space Station they’ve decided to build their own. India and Japan plan on getting to the Moon and building lunar bases (which space faring country isn’t?). Finally, an interesting editorial ruminating on many things I touch upon above, but with wider perspective.