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Posted on August 8th, 2008 by Phil.
Categories: Philosophy & Spirituality, History & Politics.
What is it about people wanting what they know damn well they can’t have? Yes, this post was inspired by our friend Johnny Edwards getting called out for his extra-marital antics, but that’s just the tip of the tentacle. Having an affair is just about par for the course if you’re a politician, but considering the consequences of getting caught - and they almost always do - it staggers the imagination that so many still can’t keep their hands out of the cookie jar.
Something about human nature leads many people to covet that which they do not have, whether they really want it or not. It’s hard to come across someone that is truly happy with exactly what they have, and doesn’t want anything more. Bijan hit the nail on the head with his posting on happiness. We have access to more technology, more luxury, more of everything material thing than ever before in history - yet people still want more than they ever have before, and are less happy than they used to be. We focus to much on the negative, and need to embrace the positive.
What does it take to be happy? It is about having less and wanting less? Should we all become monks? Probably not. At the end of the day, I don’t know the answer, so the search continues…. For now I’ll just try to be mindful of the difference between needs and desires, be thankful for what I have, and maintain a balanced perspective. I’ll let you know how it goes 
Posted on July 30th, 2008 by Phil.
Categories: Science & Technology, Humor & Pop Culture.
The MonkeyLectric LED light system, invented by Instructables.com co-founder Dan Goldwater, turns spinning bike wheels into a psychedelic experience. Beyond the fact that I love the name “MonkeyLectric”, and that I have been dying to get these on my beach cruiser, I really enjoyed reading the essay that a man named Brownlee over at Boing Boing Gadgets wrote on the inherent weirdness of bicycles and the magic of these lights:
“I’ve always wanted a bike like that. Perhaps not one that turns onlookers minds into a gelatin-like slurry, but a surrealist bicycle. Because, if you think about it, there is something inherently weird about the bicycle. With its chittering gears, bristling spokes and spinning chains, there is something insect-like about its workings… a mental connection evoked by its best synonym, velocipede… a synonym which seems to share both etymologic and entomologic phylum with the centipede.
I’m not the only one to be fascinated by the bike’s innate oddity. Bicycles are often used in art as symbols of the inherently absurd: children’s books are filled with magic or living bikes, and the penny-farthing is such a marvelously implausible method of transportation that it is constantly used as the butt of jokes in television shows. The penny-farthing was also the logo of Patrick McGoohan’s hallucinatory sci-fi spy series, The Prisoner: the bike, by itself, was a symbol of the surrealness to come.
There are few pleasures in life purer than bicycling around on a bright, brisk day. This is because bikes are already just wonderfully odd inventions… making a bike even stranger is less an act of mechanical eccentricity than an attempt to pass the pleasure of riding one to the people you cycle past, emphasizing to them what they forgot: the bicycle’s marvelous strangeness.”
What the author of this fun little pondering of bicycles is probably not aware of is the one place on earth where there are more of these being used than anywhere else….. the place that the photo attached to his essay, and shown above, was taken… the place that I will be in less than 30 days. That’s right, Burning Man!
Posted on July 28th, 2008 by Phil.
Categories: History & Politics, Business & Finance.
This morning the White House finally disclosed figures on what is a predicted record deficit of $490 billion for the 2009 budget year. Well actually, they didn’t officially disclose anything. The information was leaked by senior officials, anonymously.
The federal deficit is the difference between what the government spends and what it takes in from taxes and other revenue sources. The deficit would amount to roughly 3.5 percent of the nation’s $14 trillion economy. The government must borrow money to make up the difference. Just what we need, more debt!
President Bush inherited a budget surplus of $128 billion when he took office in 2001 but has since posted a budget deficit every year. The Bush administration has spent heavily on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and faces a large budget shortfall in tax revenue because of Bush’s tax cuts and a souring economy. What great leadership. I personally think he should have been impeached ages ago and should currently be serving prison time for fraud, corruption, gross negligence, and crimes against humanity, but that’s just my opinion.
A Democratic point man on the budget, Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota, blasted the administration for its “reckless fiscal policies,” blaming the president’s tax cuts for driving the government into deficit and saying Bush “will be remembered as the most fiscally irresponsible president in our nation’s history.”
Conrad, who chairs the Senate’s budget committee, accused the president of “squandering” the deficit he inherited from President Bill Clinton and said the increased debt the government has taken on to cover the deficit has undermined the value of the dollar and hurt the overall economy. “If they gave out Olympic medals for fiscal irresponsibility, President Bush would take the gold, silver and bronze,” Conrad said. “With his eight years in office, he will have had the five highest deficits ever recorded. And the highest of those deficits is now projected to come in 2009, as he leaves office.”
White House officials countered by saying that the budgetary problems stem from inadequate defense, intelligence and homeland security resources that were handed down from Clinton. Of course, that makes total sense. We didn’t have nearly enough aircraft carriers, so no wonder the economy went to shit. More military spending must be a cure-all for everything. It certainly worked for the Soviet Union during the cold war. Wait…
Posted on July 28th, 2008 by Phil.
Categories: Travel & Leisure, Consumer Products, Science & Technology.
In a relatively average looking hangar out in the hot and dusty Mojave Desert, a team of elite Aerospace engineers have been holed up for four years, building a spaceship. Today they showed the word what they have so far. The ship is called ‘White Knight Two’, and is the mothership of the Virgin Galactic space tourism fleet. The company plans to use their white knight to loft rich tourists some 62 miles above Earth, for a glimpse of space.
The last time there was this level of buzz in the high desert north of Los Angeles was in 2004, when throngs of spectators gathered to witness SpaceShipOne capture the $10 million Ansari X Prize by becoming the first private, manned craft to reach space. It was designed by Rutan and bankrolled by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen. I was there to watch that flight, and I can tell you it was quite something.
SpaceShipOne ushered in a new space age dominated by deep-pocketed entrepreneurs with dreams of making space voyages as mundane as airplane travel. That vision remains unfulfilled, but took a big step today. More than 250 customers have paid $200,000 or put down a deposit for the chance to be one of Virgin Galactic’s first space tourists.
White Knight Two will be the launch pad for SpaceShipTwo, the successor of the original craft. The smaller draft is about the size of a corporate Gulfstream,and capable of carrying six passengers and two pilots. Virgin Galactic declined to set a date for commercial travel, but said the earliest flights to space could be late 2009 or early 2010. The maiden voyage has been reserved for Branson and his family; Virgin Galactic plans to rename the aircraft “Eve” after Branson’s mother, a former glider pilot instructor and flight attendant.
Plans call for White Knight Two to carry SpaceShipTwo 50,000 feet in the air, tucked beneath its single 140-foot wing, before releasing it. SpaceShipTwo will then power its hybrid rocket and climb into space. Before gliding back to Earth, it will use a special “feathering” technique — in which the wings are rotated upward from the fuselage to reduce the heat of re-entry. The 2-1/2-hour trip is expected to include about five minutes of weightlessness.
I’ll tell you, if I had the money, I’d sign up.
Posted on July 23rd, 2008 by Phil.
Categories: Philosophy & Spirituality, History & Politics, Business & Finance.
Inspired by a dinner conversation I had this week, I’ve decided to provide all of you with some not very often discussed facts about the nature of religion in the good old US of A. This information is well researched, very disturbing, and merits a moment of consideration.
Let us begin with a simple recap of how religion came to the country… by boat, running for its life and seeking refuge. The US was forged by people fleeing persecution in their home countries, most often because their sects were considered too fringe to be accepted by the mainstream faiths. Considering the general religious attitude in 18th Century Europe, being too “out there” for the mainstream is a scary thought. English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh Puritans, Baptists, Quakers, and Presbyterians packed up and headed west. Jews, Huguenots, Calvinists, Mennonites, Anabaptists, Dunkers, Salzburgers, and the Amish grabbed their goods and hit the road. A kaleidoscope of sects, nearly all of which were considered too extreme in their view to be accepted at home fled the scene and crossed the Atlantic.
As a result, though the predominant belief structure was and still is still rooted in Christianity, the US has never had one unified national faith. Because of this, a great degree of freedom was allowed to nearly all faiths, and it became a giant round-robin battle to see which ones would predominate and which would wither. The result has been a myriad of faiths, each deeply rooted in their own belief structure, and each very tightly knit and constantly looking to expand their numbers and increase their power.
The examples are too many to summarize, so I offer one here. The Mormons. All hail Salt Lake City! This faith was founded by Joseph Smith, who claimed that the angel Moroni had come to him in a vision, and told him that America was the new chosen land, and the Mormons the new chosen people. Smith claimed that the angel had told him that the New Jerusalem would be in the US, and that it would specifically be in the area near Independence, Missouri. So they set up shop and settled in. Shortly thereafter, Smith was imprisoned and ultimately killed in jail, thwarting his true goal - to run for President of the United States. Needless to say, the remaining believers had to leave their “new Jerusalem”; and led by their new messiah, Brigham Young, they headed west. Young eventually claimed that he too had been visited by an angel, had a vision, and that in fact the new Jerusalem was not in Missouri but rather in Utah. Salt Lake City became their new home. His reasoning was that the geography of the three key feature of the area, the Great Salt Lake, the River Jordan, and Utah Lake, resembled an upside down map of the biblical land of Gaililee, with its River Jordan, and the Dead Sea. I guess that was good enough for the people at the time. The Mormons are now the leading power in Utah and a significant force in about five surrounding states. They still believe that when the world ends, those in their numbers will be the only ones saved by God and taken to heaven. They keep the names of all of the true believers on scrolls, hidden in the Utah mountain surrounding Salt Lake. They also ask all members of the faith to pay to the church 10% of their annual income.
The story of the Mormons is pretty common and fairly middle of the road one compared to many faiths. A good number are founded on belief systems much less plausible, by even more suspect leaders, and are rather transparent in their goals for power and money. Fundamentalist religion is big business. Always has been, and sadly, probably always will be. People living in big cities don’t see and don’t hear about the massive revival meetings going on in the “red states”, where tens of thousands congregate to shake, quake, speak in tongues, and give money to the faith. Remember the scene in Borat where he attends one of these tent sessions. That was small potatoes compared to the real big ones. Books on “End Times”, or Armageddon are selling like hot cakes, pulling in countless millions for their promoters. Not hard to believe when 60% of Christians in the US believe that the Book of Revelations will play out sometime soon, and 45% truly believe that the world will end in an Armageddon battle between Jesus Christ and the Antichrist. We’ve all seen televangelists, but do you realize how much cash they make? Even disgraced evangelical leaders like Ted Haggard, who admitted to gay sex with a male prostitute he was buying crystal meth from, are still walking away with mountains of cash.
This is not the few and far between – this is the mainstream in much of America. It is also not a declining trend, it is on the rise.
A few facts for you - all directly from polls taken by Newsweek, Gallup, Time, CNN, and Fox News.
Percentage of Americans who believe:
In the devil: 75%
In hell: 77%
In God’s creation of the earth in six days: 61%
That the bible literally accurate: 55%
That the story of Noah’s Ark is literally accurate: 60%
I don’t know about you, but that scares the shit out of me. It’s 2008, and a solid portion of the nation is strongly backing Armageddon prophecy and literal biblical interpretation. People who believe that America is God’s chosen country, and that we are his chosen people. People that elected George W. Bush into power. Our buddy “W” may be a former alcoholic, cocaine abuser, and life-long underachiever, but he’s also a born-again fundamentalist Christian. Apparently God showed him the wickedness of his ways, and its all good now. Well at least he hasn’t been the leader of an administration rooted in a radical religion, wrapping a vehemently militant, sexist and homophobic vision in patriotic and religious rhetoric. Wait a second…
Don’t be afraid to talk about these things with people. The fact that people are afraid to openly discuss issues of religion in modern society is a detriment to us all. If we are to avoid falling into a deep dark hole of bigotry and fear, we need to voice our opinions.
We also need to do our research. I’ve done mine. If you think I’m wrong, let’s talk about it.
Posted on July 18th, 2008 by Phil.
Categories: Philanthropy & Environment, Science & Technology.
The $100 laptop is here, but only if you’re a kid (and only if you’re in certain parts of the world). The XO is a robust computer designed for schoolchildren. It boasts built-in smart Wi-Fi, a bright swivel screen, and highly efficient power consumption.
A breakdown of the features:
•Built-in Wi-Fi antennas that automatically create a “mesh network” with any other XO computer within about one-third of a mile. A screen displays icons showing the other XO computers within range at any given time. The mesh also means that if any one of the linked computers has access to the Internet, all of them will. That’s important in places where Internet connections can be few and far between.
•A 7.5-inch diagonal super-high resolution color screen capable of being easily seen outdoors in daylight. The screen can swivel in all directions or fold flat to create a tablet computer for reading or playing games.
•Extremely low power consumption, about 2 watts, which is 1/10th the amount used by a typical laptop. In areas without a reliable electrical supply, the XO can be powered by a hand-held generator – pull the string for one minute to produce 10 minutes of operating time.
•A rugged water- and dirt-resistant rubberized keyboard and a body capable of withstanding five years of rough use and strong sunlight.
Inside, the operating system is based on Linux open-source software, ignoring both Windows and Mac. Instead of folders on the opening screen, students see a figure representing a child (an X with an O over it, hence the “XO”) surrounded by a circle of icons showing what activities are in use. The system also includes an Internet browser, a word processor, games, and a toolkit for a wide variety of musical activities.
The computers are designed to forgo rote learning exercises and instead promote more creative methods: exploring (the Internet browser) and expressing (video, text, and music programs). When children use the screen to read a book, for example, every page will offer a chance to make comments and discuss it with others. “I think that feature is of itself going to change the world,” Bender says. “The idea that you’re encouraged to critique, to engage in this discourse about whatever you’re looking at. That’s what learning is about.” Cool.
Posted on July 17th, 2008 by Phil.
Categories: Consumer Products, Science & Technology.
Spanish scientists have begun work on a new brain-computer interface, or BCI, capable of converting thought into commands that a wheelchair can execute. Enter the “Thought-controlled Robotic Wheelchair”.
They are using non-invasive devices to record the rhythms from the surface of the skull, and then convert signals into basic movements. “You’re not going to be using EEGs to control a robotic arm to play the piano or anything,” says Dawn Taylor, an assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University’s Department of Biomedical Engineering, “But you can certainly turn right and left and stop and go using that sort of signal.”
Two 800-MHz Intel computers mounted on the wheelchair will process these readings and send instructions to the wheels. After about a week’s training the software will adapt to patients’ thought patterns for simple commands such as “left” and “right.” The team hopes to use a combination of thought and mapping software to enable more complicated “macro” commands such as “Go to the kitchen.”
A front-mounted laser will work as a sensor, detecting obstacles ahead and changes in the environment, like furniture that has been moved. This is particularly important for people with limited head and neck mobility, as they often cannot clearly see the way ahead, especially at ground level.
The first working prototype is expected in 2008 or early 2009.
Posted on July 15th, 2008 by Phil.
Categories: Business & Finance.
ValueWiki, launched in September 2006, is a collaborative investment research tool where users collaboratively write and share stock information. By presenting investment information in a collaborative environment, they try to level the playing field and help investors make more objective decisions. They are positioning it as the Wikipedia of investing.
I have reservations about the public markets altogether, but that’s another discussion. If the service can provide accurate information on different products, terms, and investment vehicles, then its got value. While the merit of the Wisdom of Crowds approach to investing is debatable, open community-based information tools have the potential to improve upon the issues of transparency in investing, and that is something we need.
Posted on July 1st, 2008 by Phil.
Categories: Consumer Products, Philanthropy & Environment, Business & Finance.
This week Ford Motor reported that its U.S. sales have tumbled 28% from a year ago. Massive drops are also being seen at General Motors and Chrysler. Record high gas prices and rising consumer worries about the economy resulted in the weakest month for auto sales in 16 years.
Demand for Ford SUVs plunged by more than half, and demand for pickups and other trucks fell by more than a third. Even the so-called ‘crossovers’, a sign of strength in the light truck segment until recently, saw sales off 18% from a year earlier, as buyers went searching for more fuel efficient vehicles in the face of record gas prices. Ford announced steep cuts in production of its pickup and other truck models last month and a shift towards more production of cars. It also said it expected to announce plans for further cuts in plants and capacity in the months ahead.
It is clear that they are not makng the cars that people want. This wasn’t exactly a hard one to see coming. The auto industry chose short term profits and blatant greed over long term planning and the the health of the industry.
Maybe they should start making electric cars and increase production of hybrids instead of lying, cheating and robbing the American public blind so that they can keep churning out gas guzzling behemoths. For years, the energy industry and the auto industry have been in cahoots with each other (and in bed with the US Government) to perpetuate the use of machines that churn through oil. They have broken laws and misinformed the public in order to stifle the production of energy efficient vehicles. They have acted with a total disregard for the good of the planet and the good of the nation. And they have made countless hundreds of billions of dollars doing it.
I know it would not be great for the US auto industry to fail, but at the same time, it would send a good lesson to other industries. For the government to bail them out would essentially be saying that what they have done is OK, and that we continue to support their business practices. If anything, any financial aid needs to be tied to very strong, and strictly enforced guidelines. For all of us, perhaps we should think long and hard about our next auto purchase or lease, and be sure to make a decision that we can live with.
Posted on June 26th, 2008 by Phil.
Categories: Sports & Health.
In the wide world of surfing, size doesn’t t really matter. Who cares if you’re banging it out on four foot wind swell, or cruising a nice overhead point break on your longboard. What matters is how much fun you’re having in the water, and what the experience means to you. That is one of the most wonderful aspects of the surfing experience. It is whatever you make of it.
In the smaller, more elite world of big wave surfing, however, size is exactly what matters. The measuring sticks are always handy, and the bar keeps getting rasied. I don’t think it can go much further, barring peopel surfing tsunamis. The things these guys are doing today is absolutely fucking nuts - to put it mildly. I won’t get too much into numbers, dates and names - but rather just leave you with some images. I think these speak for themselves.
Bodysurfing at the Wedge, in two feet of water
Hawaiian madness at Jaws
Jaws strikes again
About to get dropped like a bag of dirt
Would you paddle into this?
View from the peanut gallery to the heaviest wave on earth - Teahupoo
Considered the largest single wave ever surfed, not in terms of height, but total raw power
The biggest wave on record occurred in Lituya Bay on the southern coast of Alaska in 1958. An earthquake measuring 8.3 on the Richter scale hit the area and shook loose an estimated 40 million cubic yards of dirt and glacier from a mountainside at the head of the bay. When the debris hit the water, a massive 1,720-foot wave was created and washed over the headland. That would’ve been a hell of a ride.
