A few posts back I wrote about my favorite tips about being green and efficient. Now my friend Andrew at the Evil Line posts this article which backs me up… multitasking reduces your efficiency at both tasks.
Don’t believe it?
Recite the letters A to J , then count to 10, then recite A to J while inserting a number between each letter (A 1, B 2, C 3…) Brains just aren’t meant to multitask …
BTW… Andrew always posts really interesting articles, you should subscribe to his blog 
I recently got into brewing at home and have had quite a good time doing it. Something about millions of yeast cells working away for you to turn those grain derived sugars into beer just makes me feel all in charge of things (or something like that).
And no it doesn’t taste like feet! Even my good friends with good taste buds agree “it’s pretty good”.
So I had to write a page about it. If you’re interested in partaking of the process next time just leave me a comment!
America is the wealthiest country on earth! (God bless her…)
or is she?
What is wealth? Is it the having of goods? Is it the having of large quantities of money? Is it the having of unassailable security?
In part yes.
The real measure of wealth is having things which we value (regardless of the measure of value that others place on those same things).
Wealth is the thing that marketers infer that you’ll have when you buy their products.
Are we as a people wealthy? Are you wealthy? Do you even know what it means to be wealthy? Will your 401k and your salary really give you what you want or will they be just another means to an end?
Sometimes I get to thinking about myself and how things are just so inconvenient and how I’m not where I want to be and how if I could just make a little bit more money every year I’d be a bit better off. Not happy, just maybe happier.
But periodically I’m reminded that I’m blessed beyond belief. Like Jamie says here. Some call it sacrifice, some call it a blessing.
Or as my French Grandfather always said (in favor of the US government – wierd huh): I love paying taxes in America. In no other place could I have made so much money.
Anyhow, I think it’s time we did a little collective repentance for our incredible selfishness and poo pooing of our myriad blessings and Providence.
Certain strains of Christianity believe that the world will come to an end (or at least the apocalyptic tribulation will begin) when the world again speaks only one language.
Regardless of your interpretation of the End Times scriptures it’s pretty fascinating to know that in a round about way the world will be speaking in one language soon enough: information.
This article from CNN points out that both Google and IBM (and probably others) are working on universal translators which would translate any page in any language to any page in any language.
“Imagine what it would be like if there was a tool built into the search engine which translated my search query into every language and then searched the entire world’s web sites,” Google’s vice president Marissa Mayer told the UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper recently.
“And then invoked the translation software a second and third time — to not only then present the results in your native language, but then translated those sites in full when you clicked through.”
Finally… the world can search for Brittany Spears sans language barriers!
Welcome to the future!
Ever heard of an EEG machine? Try this wiki entry if you haven’t.
EEG’s are used to get an idea about which parts of your brain are active, and how they are active. They are of course extremely low resolution in the sense that out of the billions of neurons crammed in upstairs (or in some of our cases, hundreds of millions), EEG’s record at most about 50 summary signals.
Microsoft and a host of others are trying to pair EEG’s up with various tasks like categorizing pictures, robot control and eventually transcribing thoughts to writing.
But perhaps the best part about EEG’s, or maybe just the internet, is that they can be built by the average (and slightly nutty) enthusiast.
Looks like I’ve found another project to work on after I finish my 100 watt CO2 laser CNC cutter!
Okay faithful readers… it’s been a while.
What to write about … what to write about?
Well, how about this, here are a few articles that I’ve read lately which I thoroughly enjoyed!
Me and My Bitches, an Object Lesson in Worship
CMU Brain Findings Big Leap Forward
And perhaps my most favorite new site of all
www.cruisersforum.com – for all you sailing junkies out there (probably just me).
Recently, a link to a video was sent to me which claimed that the “key to Swiss independence” (and happiness) was their.
Aside from the fact that it seems that the Swiss hold military service to be a facet of citizenship, it is clear that the sender of such a video believes in a 1-variable solution to government policy and national happiness. Namely that if Americans all had guns then Americans would be more free safe and secure.
It seems that more than anything American political culture is characterized by this love of 1-variable solutions which take on the form, if X policy was put in place, then Y, Z,Q, and T and S problem would also be solved.
For instance:
Conservatives – If everyone had a gun then there would be less violence, more prosperity and therefore less need for public health care options, therefore decreased immigration (both from the fact that they will be shot and because they wont get welfare when they get here), fewer jobs stolen from tax paying citizens, no unions, general happiness.
Liberals – If guns were made illegal then there would be less violence, more prosperity and therefore a publicly fundable health care option, increased legal immigration which would lead to a more diverse society with full employment for all in which workers had more power than capitalists and general happiness.
But the truth is, 1 variable solutions don’t exist in the real world. The Swiss not only encourage gun ownership, but they also compell military education. They also have a highly educated population and happen to live in a geographically easily securable location. They also fund public health care and maintain strict immigration control while taking part in the European Union. Switzerland borders France and Italy as well… two extremely wealthy and highly educated countries.
There aren’t any easy solutions in a globalized, industrialized society. Even green energy isn’t as simple as the fact that with less than 4% of the earth’s surface we could power the world… it’s true that that’s all it would take landmass-wise. But power consumption and production very rarely line up in a way that makes it easy to achieve. And we surely couldn’t lay down power cables from the Sahara desert to America…
The world is complex, and that’s what makes it both wonderful and miserable.
I’m thankful for (in no particular order except the first two):
I’m a blessed man!
Do you know how cheap it is to compute to your heart’s content (maybe your heart is already content with how much you’ve computed thus you’ve never bothered to look into it).
Well I’ll tell you.
On Amazon EC2 one can purchase an 8 core CPU with approximately 8X2.1Ghz chip-cores for $0.68 / hr.
Thus for the small price of $6.80 / hr (the minimum cost to employ a person for an hour) one can obtain 604.8 billion computer clock cycles[1].
To get a baseline comparison, your sweet 2 year old macBook can get you about 6.12 billion clock cycles in one hour for which you paid about $0.01 in electricity and about $0.50 for the computer itself[2].
Ridiculous… 100 macBooks of computing power costs about what a minimum wage employee does.
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