Often the most poignant, relevant, and valuable statements are of fewer words. I read and hear smart people all the time who feel the need to blather on and on about their point. The thing they don't understand is that they decrease the effectiveness of their argument by surrounding it with bullsh*t.
Today, economics blogger Mish, absolutely nailed it in one sentence in one of today's posts:
"Why is it so hard to find a fiscal conservative who also wants to mind their own business on gay marriage and other such nonsensical issues, respect a woman's right to choice, end the war mongering overseas, and end the ridiculous war on drugs?"
If the Republicans or Democrats want to actually become the permanent majority, they would follow this single principle. A third party running on this platform could easily control the middle 40% of the electorate. Then again, that would be too simple.
Instead of the fly of the day, here are some pics of my fishing buddies freezing their arses off on the San Juan, looking for big fish. No pics of me, as I was operating the camera.
I try to keep up on the clean and green movements, reading articles about new advances in smart grid, renewable energy, carbon capture, climategate peak oil, etc. As you might imagine, there are opposite ends of the spectrum ranging from the Drill Baby Drill crowd to the absolute zero carbon footprint crowd.
The other day I read a really inspiring article, published in Science Daily. A group of scientists at UCLA are working on a way to process carbon dioxide emitted from coal burning electric plants and liquid fuel that can be used to power vehicles or other machinery. The scientists were able to prove the process in the lab. Clearly, it will take years, millions of dollars, and a shift in the way utilities do business to turn this into a viable product. But that's not the point or what makes it inspiring. The inspiring part is that there are people out there who are thinking outside the box, to come up with real solutions. Rather than following the old pattern of just burying the waste, CO2 along with the sulfides and other nasty stuff being churned out the smokestacks by the ton, these guys are trying to find a way to take that waste and turn it into fuel. Whether this particular process succeeds along the evolutionary product path and clears all the hurdles along the way is almost beside the point.
In Atlas Shrugged, which I read about 20 years ago, a key story line was the "motor of the world", that would take static electricity and turn it into energy, representing a fundamental shift in the harnessing of energy. It is the ingenuity of scientists like those at UCLA that will create the next paradigm shift in the world's energy consumption model. I'm glad that people smarter than myself are working on it, and pushing the envelope to find solutions that don't involve planting virtual time bombs in the ground for the next generation to figure out how to disposition them.
Some things just speak for themselves. Thanks to law enforcement's embrace of audio and video, there is an endless supply of user generated entertainment.
I'd post a fly of the day, but I'd have to stop laughing.
Here is an other episode of, Hey everybody, these guys Rock! I received an email to our homeowners association from one of the neighbors, saying that she had received a fairly sketchy phone call from someone trying to sell her something. She did some research, based on the CallerID at this site called CallFerret. This one on a short list of social media applications that I find to be of significant social value. Readers can upload stories of their experiences, based on the incoming number, so that others can research potential scams. In this case, the 'vendor' offers to send free gifts that come with a $50 shipping an handling charge.
The state of the economy seems to be a challenge for ethics and good decision making. It's nice to see that technology is being used to help combat those who need to have their compass re-calibrated.
Remember the days when big brother tried to pretend that he didn't exist, for fear that there would be a public uprising? With all the sharing of personal information that people do through the 500+ social media channels, it seems that people don't care, so why should anyone try to hide what they are doing. With the Google Dashboard coming out, it shows something that everyone should have implicitly known. If you have to sign in, somebody knows who you are and what you are doing. The dashboard makes available your Google related activities.
I've heard it said in office conversations that the magnitude of the information collected would make it impossible for any entity to build a profile with actionable data. Don't believe it. In a post today on GigaOM, it is pretty clear that crunching capacity is not going to be a constraint. While browsing history certainly is innocuous enough, I have to imagine that additional information is stored and indexed in an actionable format. Like any other tool, the positive or negative outcome is largely determined by the intent and proficiency of the individual with the access to the tool.
The fly of the day is provided by the Redneck Peacock Nymph, created by Jay Zimmerman, and posted by Larry Jurgens.
Last night, I was tying some flies while my wife was watching a recorded episode of The Biggest Loser. I had never seen or heard the show before for more than the 5 seconds it would take me to do a drive-by and let loose some sarcastic remark about the participants and/or the audience... which was always popular in the Ferro house. One guy has lost 100 pounds, and easily has another 100 to go. I can't imagine what it would be like to have that much weight to lose. These people obviously are in need of some assistance to tackle their weight issues, and more power to them. I guess we all have our limits at which point we decide that a change needs to be made.
About a year ago, after injuring my shoulder in a rugby match, I went into one of those bad cycles of no exercise, holiday cheer, lots of holiday sweets, and big meals. Needless to say, the scale started inching northward until I hit the magical number of 220 lbs. For some reason, 220 is a psychological trigger that forces me to take corrective measures. Playing weight has always been 205 lbs. but let's face it, playing the occasional Olde Boys and B-side match does not constitute active participation in the sport of rugby, so I should probably aim a bit lower.
As a quasi competitive athlete, you go through periodic fluctuations in weight. One thing I have noticed, is that as my old ass continues to get older, the downward part of the fluctuation seems to be getting more difficult. Into my early 30's, I'd skip a couple of lunches, and I'd lose 10 pounds in about a week. Burgers, pasta, beers, steaks, chips, dip, biscuits and gravy were all acceptable dietary inputs in this rigorous regimen. Though, these days that does not seem to work. I started out on my trek back to playing weight with the usual two instruments, don't eat sweets, and start running. Fairly easily, I got back down to 212 lbs. But then hit a wall. I was stuck at 210-212 lbs for a good while. Really didn't matter how much I ran, and I had cut out all the sweets. It was about to get desperate, I was going to have to seriously consider giving up beer...:)
At about this time, I heard about people I knew employing several different motivational tools and methods, including:
the bodybugg, some thing you attach to your arm that monitors the calories you take in and those that you burn
bets with friends, the most disturbing coming from the Southern California contingent of my associates where the loser was going to have to walk down the Venice boardwalk in a thong
publicized personal goals, where the person would donate money to some cause that he detested
All of this seemed too complicated for something that is pretty straight forward. Somewhere around February, a study was published that said the key to weight loss was burning more calories that one consumed. Wow, no sh*t. Eventually, I started looking at the between meal snacks available in the corporate kitchen. By cutting down the trips to the cupboard, I started seeing the scale trend toward the 207 number, pretty darn close to the goal. Now that I've been out of the corporate world for about 3 months, 201 & 202 are numbers that I have been seeing for over a month now. The one thing that is strange is that I don't think I eat any less than I did before. If anything, I'm probably eating more.
My non-scientific, limited data analysis of these facts leads me to another obvious point. It's not how much, so much as what you eat. My rule of thumb is that if something comes in a pre-packaged, single serving container, it's probably not good for you. Bags of chips, string cheese, M&M's and candy of any form, power bars, and all that rapid reward stuff that you can open and eat is a clear path to the next larger hole in your belt.
(I have another theory about the correlation between the arrival of the 32 ounce Big Gulp and the rise of child and adult obesity, but I'll save that for another post.)
It's a good thing beer comes in 6-packs, or I would have to revise my new rule of thumb.
The fly of the day is the brassie, courtesy of the folks at Maine Fly Fishing:
I came across this satirical interview by John Bird and John Fortune on Paul Kedrosky's blog. As much as I try to stay away from re-posting, this one is so spot-on that I will make an exception. Every so often, comedic efforts are more accurate than anyone wants to admit, and certainly more accurate than anything said from behind a podium.
I came across this 