Kindle Killer?

Barnes & Noble eBook Reader with Android and Google Books

These devices are all very clever and nice.  My tech heroes all use them in one form or other.  Most use the Kindle but am I just old fashioned?  In spite of loving the instant access and download of hundreds of thousands of books, I find myself still loving a real book made of tree flesh.  I can run my fingers over the words, I can stick any old piece of paper between the pages as a bookmark.  I can donate them to my local library when I am done.  Yet, the E-Readers beckon to me like sirens on the rocks.  Am I like the Ancient Mariner being lured to my death on the rocks?  Will books be obsolete someday?  In my mind I can imagine archeologists of the future finding "real" books and marveling at them but I see them staring, puzzled, at a blank Kindle or Barnes and Noble ebook.  I am just confused. 

Cheap Solar Power

The Associated Press: Thinking solar power? It's never been cheaper

The government has plowed so much cash into the solar industry that it's effectively pulled the luxury tag off of home solar systems. Combined with local incentives, buyers can save up to 90 percent on a system, whether it's for a single-family home or a 75-unit condo in the city.

Bear Damage to Plane Repaired with Duct Tape and Cellophane

Bear vs. Cub vs. Man

Here is an amazing article.  I have to credit King Hawes for alerting me to this one and AVweb.com for the story.  Alaska produces all sorts of interesting conflicts between man, technology, and wildlife.

FPL's big solar power project taking shape near Indiantown

FPL's big solar power project taking shape near Indiantown

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Battle Mountain Speed Challenge

World Human Powered Speed Challenge

It's happening again.  Conditions of the road surface have been improved greatly.  If the weather cooperates the contestants could reach 90 mph on human power along. 

Ensuring Patient Safety For a Loved One in the Hospital

Patient Safety - In the Hospital | Caregiver Blog

Anyone who has family or friends in the hospital or who will be going in to the hospital should read this Blog entry by Lynda Shrager, "The Organized Caregiver."  Speaking from experience I can validate the importance of the points she discusses.  You really have to be your own advocate if you are unfortunate enough to be in the hospital alone.  If you are a caregiver you must be willing to speak up if you feel your loved one is not being cared for properly.  I was particularly pleased to read of the legislation that South Carolina passed to protect the patient. 

Why Capitalism Fails

Why capitalism fails - The Boston Globe

By the end of the 20th century, the financial system that Minsky had warned about had materialized, complete with speculative borrowers, Ponzi borrowers, and precious few of the conservative borrowers who were the bedrock of a truly stable economy. Over decades, we really had forgotten the meaning of risk. When storied financial firms started to fall, sending shockwaves through the “real” economy, his predictions started to look a lot like a road map.

This was a fascinating article from the Boston Globe about the economist Minsky and his theories on capitalism.   Too bad he has a Russian name because it is too easy to associate that with the failed Soviet Union and communism, but far from it, Minsky, as I understand it, believed in capitalism but feared the financial industry.  He warned about what would happen if the financial industry went unregulated and actually detailed what happened to us over the last few years.  He actually warned about exactly what happened to the US and other countries as they depended more and more on leverage and increased their debt.  Our financial system evolved into a giant Ponzi scheme that put Mr. Madoff to shame.  Free and unbridled capitalism seems to be self destructive and the purists who believe that the free market can solve anything are just plain wrong.  Anyone who still believes that after the collapse we have suffered is just living in denial.  The trick is finding the balance between competition and regulation.  Too much of either is dangerous.  The link above takes you to page 4 of the piece in the Boston Globe because key points are made there that apply to our situation today, but I recommend after reading it that you jump back to page 1 and read it all the way through if you have time. 

Greenhouse Gases Shifting Rain Band Northward

uwnews.org | Earth's most prominent rainfall feature creeping northward | University of Washington News and Information

June 30, 2009 | Science | Environment
Earth's most prominent rainfall feature creeping northward
Sandra Hines shines@u.washington.edu

The rain band near the equator that determines the supply of freshwater to nearly a billion people throughout the tropics and subtropics has been creeping north for more than 300 years, probably because of a warmer world, according to research published in the July issue of Nature Geoscience.

If the band continues to migrate at just less than a mile (1.4 kilometers) a year, which is the average for all the years it has been moving north, then some Pacific islands near the equator -- even those that currently enjoy abundant rainfall -- may be drier within decades and starved of freshwater by midcentury or sooner. The prospect of additional warming because of greenhouse gases means that situation could happen even sooner.

The findings suggest "that increasing greenhouse gases could potentially shift the primary band of precipitation in the tropics with profound implications for the societies and economies that depend on it," the article says.

"We're talking about the most prominent rainfall feature on the planet, one that many people depend on as the source of their freshwater because there is no groundwater to speak of where they live," says Julian Sachs, associate professor of oceanography at the University of Washington and lead author of the paper. "In addition many other people who live in the tropics but farther afield from the Pacific could be affected because this band of rain shapes atmospheric circulation patterns throughout the world."

Some Thoughts on a Four Day Work Week

Better world: Take Friday off… forever - 15 September 2009 - New Scientist

Better world: Take Friday off… forever

* 15 September 2009 by David Cohen
* Magazine issue 2725. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.

The four-day week could boost employment, save energy and make us happier.

FANCY a three-day weekend - not just once in a while but week in week out? You may think your bosses would never agree to it, but the evidence suggests that employers, employees and the environment all benefit.

The four-day week comes in two flavours. One option is to switch from five 8-hour days to four 10-hour days, meaning overall hours and salaries stay the same. In August 2008, the state of Utah moved all of its employees, apart from the emergency services, to working 4/10, as it has become known. The hope was that by shutting down buildings for an extra day each week, energy bills would be slashed by up to a fifth.

The full results of this experiment won't be published until October, but an ongoing survey of 100 buildings suggests energy consumption has fallen by around 13 per cent. The survey also found that 70 per cent of employees prefer the 4/10 arrangement, and that people took fewer days off sick.

The second form of the four-day week is to work the same number of hours per day for four days only, with a commensurate 20 per cent pay cut. With the recession hitting revenues, accountancy company KPMG announced in February that it was offering its 11,000 UK employees the option of a four-day week to avoid job losses. So far 85 per cent of employees have applied to join the scheme, and 800 now do a four-day week.

Things to Do For a Better World

Better world: Vaccinate your children - 16 September 2009 - New Scientist

Better world: Vaccinate your children

* 16 September 2009 by Clare Wilson
* Magazine issue 2726. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.

If you have ever taken a stroll through an old graveyard, you may have winced at the surprising number of tombstones bearing witness to the young age of their occupants. In the past, around 1 in 3 children died before their fifth birthday. It was common for children to perish from diphtheria, measles or whooping cough, to be paralysed by polio or to be born deaf and blind from congenital rubella.

Now fewer than 1 in 150 children die before age 5 in developed countries. Much of this is down to better sanitation and nutrition, but a large part of the credit must also go to vaccines. Despite this, some parents are refusing to allow their children to be vaccinated out of fear that certain vaccines cause autism, or that combined vaccines against several diseases overload the immune system.

Vaccines can cause side effects, and a few have had such serious effects they have had to be withdrawn. However, any side effects are usually minor, such as a fever, and have to be set against the risks of the real disease. What's more, study after study has shown that autism is not more common in children who are vaccinated. And children can respond to an estimated 10,000 immune challenges at one time - a good job when you consider the maelstrom of microbes they encounter in every speck of dirt.

Healing of America

Books - One Injury, 10 Countries - A Journey in Health Care - Review - NYTimes.com

Similarly, what Americans often consider a single unique system of health care is an illusion: we exist in a sea of not-so-unique alternatives. Like the citizens of Germany and Japan, workers in the United States share insurance premiums with an employer. Like Canadians, our older, destitute and disabled citizens see private providers with the government paying. Like the British, military veterans and Native Americans receive care in government facilities with the government paying the tab. And like the poor around the world, our uninsured pay cash, finagle charity care, or stay home.

Our archipelago of plans means that those safe on a good island with good insurance can be delighted with the system, even as millions of invisible fellow citizens tread water or drown offshore. It means that those on a mediocre island are stuck there. It also means that not one single piece of the infrastructure — like record keeping, drug pricing and administrative costs — can be streamlined across islands in any meaningful way. Hence the expense, the inequity and the tragedy.

Can we ever repair the damage to our planet?

Great Lakes Cleanup Could Take 77 Years - CBS News

(AP) Cleanup of the most polluted sites in the Great Lakes is moving so slowly it will take 77 more years to finish the job at the existing pace, according to a federal report.

More information about obesity from the Framingham Study

The Buddy System: How Medical Data Revealed Secret to Health and Happiness

WIRED MAGAZINE: Issue 17.10
Med-Tech : Health RSS
The Buddy System: How Medical Data Revealed Secret to Health and Happiness
By Jonah Lehrer Email 09.12.09
Obesity: Fat By Association
Smoking: Together We Quit, Divided We Fail
Happiness: Joy Is Contagious, Offline and on the Net
Download the PDF (1.9 MB)

A revolution in the science of social networks began with a stash of old papers found in a storeroom in Framingham, Massachusetts. They were the personal records of 5,124 male and female subjects from the Framingham Heart Study. Started in 1948, the ongoing project has revealed many of the risk factors associated with cardio

SC Politicians

First the governor of my home state goes AWOL for a few days for a hottie in Argentina. This is a guy who is married with children. He disappears saying he was "going hiking on the Appalachian Trail." When I say disappeared I mean it. No one knew where he was. No phone numbers, no addresses, no way to get in touch and he was gone for at least four days with out anyone knowing how to get in touch with him. Sad, because he seems to be a fairly nice person but hopelessly out of touch with reality.

Then, Senator Joe Wilson from South Carolina makes us proud by shouting out, "You lie" at one point during the president's speech. There was also some heckling from other members of the sad gang of naysayers that our GOP has become. I tried to go to Wilson's web site at http://www.joewilson.house.gov/ to register my complaint. My hope is that it is because so many people are complaining to him but my fear is that it is because so many people are trying to congratulate him. I really have no way of knowing but I for one will keep trying to register my complaint.

South Carolina is a beautiful state and I would like to be proud of it but if those who represent us on the national stage continue to show such juvenile behaviors I fear that my pride is crumbling.

Some possible reasons for widespread fear of government

This is the first time I have read a serious analysis of why people fear government and exhibit such irrational behavior at public meetings.  Usually critics just put them down as "crazies" but this author takes a serious analytical approach as to why they behave the way they do and why there is such a widespread fear and distrust of "government." 

The Psychology of the Right-Wing's Anti-Government 'Death-Panel' Delusions | Politics | AlterNet

A lot of heavyweight thinkers have offered explanations of the irrationality of modern political behavior -- you know, behavior like Medicare recipients at town halls screaming about the evils of government-run health care, or otherwise-reasonable people likening President Barack Obama's plan to Nazi eugenics.

Oakland, California

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I believe this is the apartment building we lived in when my ship, the USS Peregrine, was in overhaul in the Bethlehem Shipyards in San Francisco, California.

421 Simonton Street, Key West, Florida

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We used to live upstairs over this store when I was in the Navy. The entrance was in the center where the indented doors are. You walked through a courtyard and then up some stairs. No air conditioning. Jalousie windows. This was when I was on the USS Peregrine. I am now reading the Alex Rutledge series of detective stories written by Tom Corcoran that take place in Key West. It is fun to read about all the places I used to know and visit.

115 North Salem

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My grandfather's house in Sumter, South Carolina. My dad and his 8 brothers and sisters grew up here. We all gathered every Sunday at my grandfather, Popoo's, house. I have many fond memories of being there with a multitude of cousins and all my aunts and uncles talking at the same time,

123 Broad Street

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This was my home when I was growing up. I lived here until I finished college and joined the Navy.

The Complete Kaisei Voyage Blog

Project Kaisei Cruise Blog by Karen Hawes

Day 28 S/V Kaisei: The Voyage Ends/The Journey Begins