Archive for 'thoughts' Category

2011.06.09

Disruptive Hypotheses

Though geared towards businesses, I thought this article applied equally well to writers, especially writers or speculative fiction. That the author quoted George Bernard Shaw helped in seeing this:

The difference between prediction and provocation, to paraphrase George Bernard Shaw’s famous line, is the difference between “seeing things as they are and asking, ‘Why?,’ or dreaming things as they never were and asking, ‘What if?’”

After all, what is speculative fiction but asking, “What if?”

2011.06.05

What Was Great About the South?

Today I saw a map of the AIDS epidemic on io9 and thought to myself, “Damn, it must suck to be in the South!”

And then I thought, well it does suck in a general way to be from the South. Generally. For example, you would be generally poorer, generally less educated, generally more likely to depend on handouts from the government like food stamps, and generally more likely to suffer crime. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find much good about being in the South unless you are religious or have a predilection for hurricanes and tornados.

Seriously, can someone remind me what was supposed to be great about the South?

2011.05.02

bin Laden is Dead

On Friday Rosa and I were with friends and somehow we got talking about America’s military involvement in the Middle East. It’s a topic that gets me a little heated and I reminded everyone of our first target in Afghanistan and the primary reason we went there in the first place: to find and bring to justice Osama bin Laden. It’s a topic that most people I talk to seem to have forgotten but that I never have. He was par exemplar of hostis humani generis.

Then last night, just before going to bed, Rosa and I checked the news and saw that, at long last, this scourge to humanity had been killed. His compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan had been raided by members of SEAL Team Six and his body identified by genetic comparison to his sister’s brain. Shortly after he was buried at sea.

My first thoughts are: About f*cking time. Almost TEN years after what is now called 9/11, this terrorist was finally tracked down and, as the pundits are saying, brought to justice. I am loathe to call it justice at this point, but I am… glad…? to see it finally done.

2011.04.27

Hemp Oil Versus Gasoline

This morning started with an interesting discussion about replacing all energy consumption with hemp oil. What this has to do with IT, manga or anime I don’t know but there it is. The debate got heated (we failed to follow the rules) and eventually the other fellow walked away in a huff. He said, in essence, that hemp oil could essentially fix all our energy problems. I disagreed saying hemp oil couldn’t resolve even one energy problem. Later he came and apologized for his overreaction and I’ve since sent him an email with most of what appears below to give him some insight. I thought it worth sharing.

With best estimates, hemp can produce about 100 gallons per acre.

Using outdated information from 2004, America consumes about 140,000,000,000 gallons of gas per year.

Hemp can be harvested every 120 days, which gives about 3 harvests a year in an idealized world (which we do not have).

140,000,000,000/100 = 1,400,000,000 acres required from a single hemp harvest to equal gasoline consumption. However, let’s go with the hypothetical three harvests a year:

1,400,000,000/3 = 466,666,666 acres needed if we can get three harvests a year.

466,666,666 acres = 729,166 square miles. America is 3,537,441 square miles, which seems like a lot. However, of that land only 635,038 square miles are usable (based on 406,424,909 acres of cropland).

635,038 is less than 729,166, so not only could we not grow enough hemp, but we wouldn’t be able to produce any crops and we would starve. Incidentally, hemp will not grow in some environments so usable acreage is actually smaller. Even more damning is the fact that gasoline is already processed for consumption; hemp oil would need to be processed as well, which would reduce the volume actually produced. There is also hemp’s lesser fuel efficiency to factor into the equation. Clearly hemp oil cannot replace gaoline on any sort of equal footing.

All of this only addresses automobiles gasoline consumption; it doesn’t touch upon electrical or natural gas consumption.

The problem with the whole argument isn’t necessarily that my coworker was wrong. It’s that he listens to and blindly agrees with pundits that say things like, “Hemp oil can replace gasoline!” The best thing for the world would be to stop believing people on the radio, television and in books who talk like they know what they are saying but possibly don’t. Look up the facts for yourself. Use a critical mind even -and maybe especially- with people you agree. Don’t get sucked into the belief, so prevalent today, that one way is absolutely correct and everything else is wrong. Remember wise Yoda: “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

In this case The Suffering is our world and so many people on it. Our inability to find fact-based solutions to problems because so many people are blinded by ideas and beliefs has, and will continue to, give rise to too many evils.

2011.04.21

Fixing California

I have little to argue with this article on the late, great California legislature. It points out three creeping, insidious and long term failures affecting the California legislature that inhibit and stymy the performance of its duties.

1: Term limits kill any experience from accumulating in our representatives. Essentially term limits as they stand now are a knowledge drain, and the result is sewage.

2: Proposition 13 needs, at a minimum, to be reformed. Not only does it keep housing taxes at a fixed rate more-or-less in perpetuity, but it requires any new taxes of any kind to require a 2/3 vote in the legislature. I’m not saying new taxes are always a solution, but let the legislature hang itself with the taxes when we vote them out when they screw up.

3: The article’s advocation of eliminating individual campaign contributions is the one item I have an issue with. I think this is a field that could be reformed or, better, completely revamped. I propose that to run for a legislative seat you should a certain number of signed petitions (say 100,000). Once underway, anyone can contribute to that election. The candidates all pull equally from that pool. Individuals, corporations and special interests can all contribute to the pool without limits. This way the candidates have equal footing so long as they can make the ticket.

The final piece I think is missing from the article is a reform of California’s referendum system. The referendum system is clearly broken with almost every single one requiring government spending (often mandatory) with no inclusions of where the money will come from. In some few cases it is used to limit the rights of others, and in other cases to cover for a cowardly legislature.

Now that I think about it, maybe what California really needs is a complete reboot. A new constitution, a clean wipe of all debts and existing laws. Let’s just make sure to get it right this time.

2011.04.18

American Aristocracy

When we were taking the train to Sevilla for our honeymoon, Rosa had picked up a copy of ¡Hola!, one of the numerous Spanish gossip magazines, to pass the time. Like the junk we have here in the States it covered “the important” people, but one of the main differences I saw was that many pages were devoted to the comings, goings and doings of the Spanish aristocracy. Spain, like England, is a constitutional monarchy (kind of like the many other European countries at the link).

It struck me that there was so much coverage, and gossip, of royalty, a class I personally consider dated and extinct. It’s something we in America hear about but rarely experience directly except our multitude of celebrities and their often disasterous lives. In a sense, from the perspective of the scream sheets, celebrity is the American aristocracy. I had told this to Rosa, even, but lately I’m thinking I am wrong.

America did away with European nobility on our shores and replaced it with something new and publicly secret: the rich, or as most of them should be called, the overclass.

Take any of the old rich (Rockefellers, Du Ponts, Venderbilts, Astors, Hearsts, etc) and you’ll see they are still wealthy. Take any of the newer rich (Koshs, Hiltons, Bushes, Waltons, etc) and you’ll see they are blatantly passing wealth and power to their children, too. They have manipulated the system so that their wealth stays inside their families so that within a generation you have people who have known nothing but excessive money and have only grown more of it because the system as it exists now allows them. This sounds stikingly like noble families, who have also known nothing but their power and influence.

Take, for instance, the debate around inheritence taxes, which conservatives call a “death” tax. Statistically 91% of Americans inherit nothing (except, often, debt). Those that do inherit are already in the top 10% of wealth (which, generally speaking, are millionaires or better). While technically not a “noble” class with titles and “royal” blood, they are an effective oligarchy with the richest 400 families controlling $1.27 trillion, little of which “trickles down” to the rest of the nation. When power and wealth remains concentrated in the few and is handed down generation to generation within the family, then we no longer have anything akin to democracy in a republic; we have a plutarchy.

We do have our own form of aristocracy here in America. The gap between the rich and the rest of us is only increasing. When will we get back to our roots and have a revolution?

Unfortunately, not until we all realize the idea that any one of us could also join that upper class is as likely as any one of us being struck by lightning (~1/750,000) the exact same moment we learn we won the grand lottery (~1/120,000,000): statistically impossible.

2011.03.31

The Cost of Having Children

My wife sent me a PPT file about the high cost of having children today… Or not. While most of it was kind of cheesy (eegads, where do they find this music?!?) there were some data points worth sharing.

The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 and came up with $160,140.00 for a middle income family.

But $160,140.00 isn’t so bad if you break it down. It translates into:

• $8,896.66 a year
• $741.38 a month
• $171.08 a week
• A mere $24.24 a day

I understand children aren’t cheap, and the PPT made a big deal out of all the non-money, feel-good benefits in early childhood, but $741.38 a month is really not too bad. It’s significantly less than our monthly rent! Too bad that’s all after taxes.

Incidentally, other sources quote the actual figure at $222,360, $204,060, and almost $300,000. Still, even $350,000 works out to $373.93/week or $1,620.37/month. Not cheap, still much cheaper than my rent, cheaper than a crack habit, and less expensive than most people would think.

I imagine that every child that follows, much to their chagrin, will be cheaper to raise since you can buy food in bulk (everyone has to eat, even mac and cheese!), give them hand me down clothes (they’ll love it!), and generally reuse most of the stuff their older siblings had. I suppose this could explain some of the bitterness of my brother towards me earlier in life.

2011.03.25

Religion on the Decline

Some say religion is on the decline in many parts of the world. In fact, it is supposedly heading towards extinction. Read this and tell me that wouldn’t be a bad thing. I know the article about Pi is satire, but it rings so true that I don’t think I would miss this brand of Republican, nor the religion that inspires them. I’m not slamming all religion, mind you, just the ones that aren’t dealing with reality and could think that Pi (?) could equal three, or that the Earth is only a couple thousand years old, or that the Earth is flat and the sun, planets and stars orbit us. There are a shocking number of people who fit this category…

2011.03.04

Revolt!

It’s clear to most people that many things in America are broken. We have two primary parties (I’m not Green, BTW) that, while they espouse different philosophies, generally no longer side with the public good. We have state and federal programs (sometimes set up secretly) that were set up for the public benefit and yet seem to use their money to fund their friends and other powerful individuals and to line their own pockets. We have governments at every level running out of money and running on deficits despite paying sports coaches millions of dollars. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and the middle class in America is not improving.

Revolution. It worked here in 1776. It worked in France. It seems to be working in portions of the Middle East right now (and at least people there seem to care enough to try). I’d like to see a movie about this kind of revolution. I’d like to read a book where this revolution comes true. I’d like to see Anonymous participate. I’d like to see average Americans join the cause.

That’s all I have to say about that because ultimately revolutions are, to one degree or another, violent. And I’d hate for you to read my honest opinion.

2011.03.01

Indie Writer Wealth

Reading about Amanda Hocking makes me wonder if I should give up the idea of trying to get published the traditional way and focus on eReader platforms like Kindle. She has something like eight books (and one novella) out and has apparently sold almost half a million dollars in January alone. That’s a nice paycheck. I could use even half of that!

It used to be said that if you self published then you were dooming yourself to never getting a traditional book deal. As technology is advancing it is becoming clear that, at least for some individuals, this is less and less of an issue. In Amanda Hocking’s case she probably has a better deal going it on her own than if she had a book deal. I say “probably” because who knows? If she had a regular book deal she might have turned into the Next Big Thing™ and would have loads more sales and opportunities on all fronts.

But you never know, and she’s doing quite well on her own, and she’s calling her own shots within the context of having an agent. Apparently going indie or traditional, the job of an agent is still going to be important… And since one of her series has been optioned to be a movie it’s possible we’ll hear a lot more from this young 26 year old.

I’m not exactly jealous. Envious might be a better word. You can check out Amanda’s blog here.