Merry Christmas!

For the prior few years, I had been a soldier in the War on Christmas. I have not considered myself a christian since my early teens. I did love all of the Christmas stuff as a kid: going to midnight mass and belting out carols ("Joy To The World", "Oh Come All Ye Faithful", and "Hark The Herald Angels Sing" were favorites) in particular. But, as the Religious Right has kept pushing and pushing -- "the US is a christian nation", etc -- I've felt the need to push back.

So the last few years, I've been celebrating Winter Solstice explicitly. Not that I'm particularly a pagan, but I was an astronomer, and the solstices and equinoxes are astronomical events. I do think that the pagan myths, particularly the Norse ones, are a lot more fun and interesting than the christian and hebrew myths.

But this year, I have figured, screw it. If I know someone's a christian, I tell them "Merry Christmas". So funny tho, the Indians around the neighborhood or working various places, I stick with "Happy Holidays" -- because they probably aren't christians. They are some of the new, multi-cultural americans whose existence conservatives are trying so desperately to deny. I think my newfound tolerance is a result of my generally more relaxed attitude to life since retirement.

One thing though that is Not Right. Christmas, by name, is a religious holiday, and it is the only religious holiday that is s federal holiday. Seems like a 1st amendment violation to me. Hmmm, asking The Google about "christmas federal holiday constitutional" points to this lawyer's blog post. Apparently there was a court case in 1999 that said it was OK -- because there is no requirement to actually do anything or accept anything religious or christian on Christmas. Ha ha, it also mentioned that Thanksgiving being the 4th Thursday in Novemember, is not an endorsement of the Norse god Thor, whom Thursday is named for. Yay, I guess???

Last week, on impulse I got a couple of history books out of the library. BTW, our local public library branch is really nice. Lots of meeting and study rooms, and a bank of 32 public PCs in the back. I skimmed both the books and only read in depth in a few places. The first book was "The Atlas of Past Worlds", by John Manley (1993). This tried to give a sense of what development was going on around the world, rather than just in the famous places. They took 5 locations for the years 2000 and 1000 BC, 1, 1000, and 1500 AD for a total of 25 chapters. I didn't get that much from this. The author is an archaeologist, so a lot of the emphasis was on the physical layout and the types of artifacts found. I think Jared Diamond spoils you for this kind of stuff by providing so much of the "why" of the time and how it integrates into the sweep of history.

The 2nd book I skimmed was "The Encyclopedia of North American Indians", edited by D. L. Birchfield (1997).I don't feel like I learned much new here, except for maybe more of an appreciation for how many different tribes there were. Generally a tribe consisted of up to 10s of villages with 10s of 1000s of individuals living in areas of a few 1000s of square miles. This book and more googling seemed to confirm that in the 18th century at the time of 1st contact with the white invaders, Kentucky was the permanent home of no tribes. It was used as hunting grounds for Shawnee from north of the Ohio River and Cherokee from the southeast. I wonder why that was?

This book, in the entry for "Alcoholism, Indian", also denies that there are genetic differences that limit the ability to metabolize alcohol that are more prevalent among Native Americans. A friend of mine who claims Indian blood would disagree with that, claiming that his Indian blood makes him a lightweight when it comes to alcohol consumption -- 1 or 2 beers and he's done, and the more so as he ages. Hmmm, googling "alcohol metabolism genetic variation" gives among others this article, which says that there are definitely different genetic alleles that give some individuals more ability to metabolize alcohol. So the question I guess is, how are these alleles distributed across ethnic groups? This article addresses this explictly, and says:

Additionally, despite the fact that more Native American people die of alcohol-related causes than do any other ethnic group in the United States, research shows that there is no difference in the rates of alcohol metabolism and enzyme patterns between Native Americans and Whites.

So my friend probably has the slow alcohol metabolizing genes, Indian blood or no Indian blood.

Now on the magazine stack, then on to "The Wealth of Nations". Oh, also signed up for an online course at Columbia University that starts Jan 21: "The Age of Sustainable Development". Interested to see how that goes.

TTFN: Dumbass v2.0 Released

Just got back from a 1.5 hr walk with the dog. After 2 blocks, I'm like, "this heat is brutal". No biking tomorrow, I don't think, maybe a short walk. The latest cold front from Canada is now stalled as an east-west stationary front over the Great Lakes. My prediction is we will be into drought for the rest of the summer. The cold fronts just can't fight their way south through the warm, moist Gulf air. The farthest south they get is Indianapolis.

Got 4 good CDs from a young coworker:

• "Blueberry Boat", The Fiery Furnaces, 2004. Nicely eclectic, might be changed to "unclassifiable", long narrative songs, I'm sure some 4 stars.
• "You Forgot It In People", Broken Social Scene, 2002. Again, nicely odd stuff.
• "At Mount Zoomer", Wolf Parade, 2008. Very nice stuff, like their 1st one.
• "Rubber Factory", The Black Keys, 2004. Cooper thought I would like this one the most because of a Captain Beefheart cover (I still haven't figured out which track). My least favorite of the 4, the most bluesy.

Read last weekend "Dark Integers and Other Stories", by Greg Egan. Five stories, I had already read three of them. His grasp of physics, particularly quantum and astro, and computing, makes him by far the best hard science fiction author out there.

I'm currently reading "Brasyl", by Ian McDonald. Not bad, but dragging a little.

I've started impulse buying movies on iTunes: "Jumper" (guilty); and for my future grandchildren (no jinx), "The Golden Compass" and "The Spiderwick Chronicle". All were OK films.

Now to our title topic. Dumbass v1.5 is just not working out. The central existential feature of Dumbass v1.5 was, "stay drunk all all the time". Unfortunately, ever-increasing alcohol tolerance make this an unobtainable goal. I was averaging about 4 oz alcohol a day, and not getting a decent buzz on until I got to about 8-10 oz -- too much. And, no hangover, but about 6-7 the next evening, man would I be thirsty, my throat would be so parched, mildly headachy, and that 1st drink would really address these symptoms nicely -- not good.

So, in a fit of existential spontaneity, I have conceived Dumbass v2.0. The central feature, no alcohol. I have such an addictive personality, I really have a problem with moderation approaches. I was up to smoking 10 or cigarettes at O'Neills on Wednesday nights. No drinking implies the proscription of the following drinking-related activities:

• dining out in the evenings -- I have gone to cooking in the kitchen every 2-3 days, the old dishes I used to make when the kids were here;
• grilling out;
• entertaining (our minimal number of) friends; I have never been social. Stimulants always helped to lubricate interaction with others;
• playing music in public. Summed up nicely by "Don't Go To Nightclubs Anymore", Van Morrison, "Keep It Simple" CD. Plus O'Neills has gotten successful to where it's down to 3 songs a night. Last time I was there, "One Way Out" got done 3 times (I played bass on one). I mean, I don't mind the song, but 3 times in one evening?
• blogging -- you knew half of the posts were drunken, right?
• travel, particularly long car trips. If anything makes you want a drink, it's the frustration of flying, or spending 10 hours in a car.

So Dumbass v2.0 was booted last Sunday. Day 7 w/o a drink. Still a little headachy and throat still parched, but no biggie. I canceled the August swing up east, I'll veg at home, my wife is talking about driving to Ithaca with her sister for one daughter, and then flying to NYC to visit our oldest.

What are the fun features of Dumbass v2.0, you might ask? Sounds pretty boring, doesn't it? But, I don't think it's inappropriate to be stop trying to be the coolest 57-year old in Lexington, KY. Instead, I will just enjoy the following Dumbass v2.0 features:

• reading -- my reading had gone way down;
• walking;
• cooking in the kitchen;
• playing music in the basement (I think);
• an occasional movie or sit-down concert;
• birdwatching;
• vegetable gardening (next year);
• getting more massages and variously reallocating the $1500 a month I've been spending of dining out, bars, and alcohol.

By February, I may feel secure enough to hazard going to St. Martin. Maybe my old "no drinking before 4 pm unless you're in the Caribbean" could morph into "no drinking unless you're in the Caribbean" -- or "on vacation" -- or "on vacation or on birthdays or holidays" so I am not totally a sober sad sack. We're also talking about returning to Manzanillo for my wife's birthday in mid-November.

As I get towards retirement, I also want to find some activity where I can give back to the community -- my rearing nags at me if I don't. My youngest has told me that the Fayette County public schools could find something for me to do. I also ran into Henry Wu ("Mr. Wu! Mr. Wu!") a few weeks ago. He was trying to recruit me to come back to soccer refereeing. He's 65, been retired a few years, and refereeing 80 high school games a year. Aubrey Cashman he said is 74 and still reffing. Well, I'm now down below 210 for the 1st time in maybe a year. If I can get down around 180, maybe I'll think about it. Nothing like some good old-fashioned referee abuse to imbue oneself with the love of one's fellow man.

Well, I guess we've come to the end. Those of you paying attention may have noticed that blogging is a proscribed activity under Dumbass v2.0. So this post, #150, a nice round number, is the last. As I mentioned last time, I think I'm out of piquant existential insights. I do think there have been some in the 5 year, 2 month history of this blog, but, again, I think they're mostly all there, not too many left in my brain only. And, there are plenty of higher-bandwith bloggers out there so who can give you music and book recommendations. I have nice point-to-point communication going with several family and friends, I will continue on private channels.

So, TTFN, and good luck to all!

Chris Heinz
Lexington Kentucky
July 19, 2008 12:10pm

Too Much

-- as in the Dave Matthews song. I think I am suffering from some existential / consumerism indigestion.

So, as background, I have recently replaced:

• My 24 year old 27" console TV with a 52" Sharp Aquos LC52D64U. Under 3" thick, it worked out great, my son was in for his birthday 2 weeks ago and he and his buds hung it for me.
• My 15 year old Sony tuner for a Sony 5300 tuner with 5 HDMI inputs, plus old stuff like phono. Nice piece of gear, but 3x $ I was expecting to spend. But, I do keep things a long time.
• My April 99 Dell 2x500Mhz home computer with a 4x2.4Ghz Dell workstation, due in this week.

Then a few weekends ago visited my friend David in Columbus OH -- of the 4000 bottle wine cellar, the gourmet cooking, the 1Ghz ethernet home computing setup (plus 2.1 terabytes of RAID disks for his 100000 pictures -- he is a wonderful photographer and a photoshop wizard) and the house wired for cable AND satellite. 48 years old, he and his wife have no children and are consumers' consumers.

Then the next weekend had lunch with an old high school friend of mine in Louisville who is 3rd generation president of the family company. He has done a great job with it, diversifying and training his son to take over for him. He and his wife, empty nesters like us, recently moved into a huge, beautiful house across the street from Cherokee Park.

So, it's just been nagging at me. I was brought up lower middle class in a family of 7 kids, I just don't think I'm cut out to be nouveau rich. It just doesn't feel right. Goddamned catholic upbringing, you never get to enjoy anything.

Still, you look at our resource/carbon footprint, and despite the prius and recycling and keeping things for 10s of years, my footprint is still 1000x a third worlder's. And, my wife astutely pointed out, if you add in our 4 grown kids, our total footprint is much larger than our childless friends in Columbus.

Looked at vacation lake homes in Tennessee last weekend. Saw some nice stuff. The 2nd house will definitely help our footprint!

Well, I guess I'll just hope for Real Good Tech to fix all this up.

Haven't biked for 2 weeks. Biking will be over soon.

Meanwhile, I've gotten to drinking probably 1-5 oz alcohol per day, probably averaging around 3. I am my own science fair project, what fun! I think that once I got over averaging 2 oz/day, I could no longer drink enough water to rehydrate myself. So I think I am permanently dehydrated. The back of my throat/postnasal region is always scratchy -- but a few drinks in the evening and I won't notice it! My legs want to cramp all the time too. I sleep more and exercise and read less.

So, I'm going to have to consciously cut back to weekends and Wednesdays (LBJ), see if that helps the dehydration. Seems like I want to be addicted to something. I quit smoking so colds wouldn't last so long, the one I caught in Quebec still lasted 2 weeks, I thought, I should go back to smoking.

Plus, I think the alcohol is depressing me, to where the christians and other dumbasses who have always been there are getting me down more than they should. I guess we'll see.

Reelin' and Rockin' -- or is that Rockin' and Reelin'

Whew, just got back back from Lynagh's. My wife (mother?) is working 3rd shift (now) so I get to stay out as late as I want, woo-hoo. 1st 3 songs went fine, then later sang backup for 3 different people, then did 3 more. "Who do you love" is so great to play, if you have anyone decent up there with you, you can vary the dynamics and tonality and get a Grateful Dead thing going that really rocks.

The real reason for this post:

http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSKUA54703320070725

This is truly shocking to me. WWN is an american institution. I bought my friend David a subscription to it at Renlar, it was great, it would come in Friday afternoon, we would read about exploding pigs, opera-singing pigs, flying pigs (the best issues always featured a pig) -- and decide, enough work for the week, it's Friday, let's get the hell out of here. I can't believe it's gone.

But, we did quit subscribing after 3 years because we realized they were recycling all the stories that we had read 3 years earlier ...

Biked 37.9 miles in 2h54m, 1 stop last Saturday. Temperature in the low 80's, man does that make a difference. Going to High Bridge Park this weekend, 40 miles.

Had a great cookout / going away party last Sunday with Ben Lacy playing. Gained major street cred when the cops showed up at 9:51 re a complaint on the loud music ?!?!?

Didn't have a drink Monday or Tuesday, didn't particularly notice any withdrawal symptoms, so I don't think I'm an alcoholic. I'm wondering tho, are there lab tests that can be run that say, yes, you are an alcoholic?

Naprosyn continues to gnaw at my belly but it does help the osteo-arthritis in my left thumb.

HuhHuhHuhHuh ...

Quoting my friend Patrick, who sent me this totally semiotically ambiguous piece of (I think) antitheism.

Last weekend we had a cousins' reunion in Louisvile, 18/20 of us (my mother's side of the family) represented. My baby sister, who reads this blog, mentioned how mean I sound sometimes, when in person, I am of course a sweetie-pie. Well, I still think celebrating the deaths' of conservative reactionary assholes is not inappropriate. I probably wouldn't do it in person tho. I am sure their families love them despite their inhumanity.

Meanwhile, in response to an e-mail I received re the last post, I believe we can begin to formulate "The Dumbass's Rules of Internet Etiquette":

1. Drinking and online shopping is a Bad Idea.
2. Drinking and blogging, on the other hand, is A-OK!

The Les Paul came Saturday (we were in Louisville, Fedex left it on the front porch ?!?!?), and is absolutely beautiful -- I've decided to name it "Black Beauty" -- antique black with gold trim and all the hardware gold -- way too pimp to take out in public.

Here's a picture (and you can Click toZoom).

It's been a real bummer for the last month or so tho. I'm getting arthritis in all the big toe/thumb joints (started ~ 1 year ago), and my left thumb has been killing me lately -- both joints swollen and hurting, playing guitar ascerbates. Getting into a doctor soon. I'm hoping it's gout (too much rich food and drinking), they have drugs for that. Meanwhile, I've decided I will take this opportunity to learn to finally play slide decently -- you don't use your left thumb there. In the past, I've tried to play slide for 2-3 minutes and sucked so bad I've given up. I've played slide a few times lately, stuck with it, getting better. Lots of sustain on the tube screamer helps. I was playing last weekend with my 14 YO nephew who's just started, but who I think has the touch to be a good guitarist -- he plays with fuzz all the time. Rule of thumb for beginners (including me on slide): fuzz-tone good.

I played downtown yesterday (4th of July) with G.Busy for 3 songs. My playing sucked, from lack of practice due to the fucking thumb. But singing and band-leading were OK, and of course I had fun.

New music:

1. Amy Winehouse, "Back to Black" -- from my youngest daughter, who didn't like Joss Stone, but likes this. This comes across as a totally late 60's motown record. So, with Joss Stone and Jamie Lidell, another Brit making totally kick-ass retro R&B music. 4 stars.
2. The Kinks, "Preservation Act I" -- playing now, goddamn Ray Davies could write songs. I think that I am going to be forced to give this 4 stars, despite the degree of stiltedness that comes from this being a concept album.

Finished reading "River of Gods" by Ian McDonald. Subtitle "August 15, 2047 - Happy Birthday, India". 4 stars, but -- it kept bugging me, this novel is basically "Neuromancer" on steroids, in India 2047. AI's trying to free themselves, with Krishna Cops instead of the Turing Police. Plus, it violated my heuristic of 100 pages per narrative thread -- 600 pages for 9 narrative threads. But, they started merging with maybe 200 pages to go, so not horrible, but it left some threads hanging at the end. Still, a real page turner, very enjoyable.

Biked 25 miles in 2 hours last Sunday, no cool birds.

Oops -- I Did It Again

Well, after months of being good and not bothering the members of KASES, I snapped and posted another call-to-arms. The Creation Museum in Northern Kentucky pushes all the wrong buttons. Here's the post:

I would like to personally thank Blenster for the anti-museum activities. The Lexington Herald-Leader coverage showed photos of the protesters, all the signs were great, altho I only remember "You evolved too -- just not enough".

I slide-showed the Flikr museum tour today. LOL like 4-5 times. That got me thinking... I hate to give these people $14.95, but, maybe with funding, how about maybe 2-4 times a day, have someone go through the "museum" and laugh, real loud, throughout? Target laugh would be, the deep belly guffaw. If/when a laugher is thrown out, I would suggest loud, laughing protestation, possibly per a prepared script, but nothing that could get anyone arrested.

I missed the talk last night re "God -- the Failed Hypothesis" (a drummer friend of mine needed a guitarist -- sorry, music over antitheism). I wanted to meet some of my fellow skeptics. I also wanted to raise my concerns re: appealing to rationality as an approach ain't going to cut it here.

The only one of the recent antitheist books I have read is the Dennett, "Breaking the Spell". I think I reviewed that book at this forum. I found Dennett's "please thing logically, Mr. Religious Fanatic" approach to be totally laughable.

We are dealing with one of, if not the, stongest memeplex that the human memesphere has developed in its 100,000 year history. Logic will do nothing against the "this makes me feel secure, when by all rights I have no business doing so" comfort that religion (and mindless patriotism, another of the very old and strong memeplexes) provide.

So, I think the only way to oppose this kind if thinking is via memetic warfare (apologies to the pacifists amongst us for my use of a militaristic term). I don't believe that memetic warfare is a discipline in which one can be certified at this time, but my gut level feel is that laughter is one of the strongest tools in the memetic warriors toolbox at this time. Some really catchy tunes would help too.

One of my major motivations for wanting to fix this, aside from "a mind is a terrible thing to waste", is my non-mindless patriotism. In "Darwin's Dangerous Idea", Dennett quotes the biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky (1973): "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." Raising our children on feel-good fairy tales instead of the scientific method is an express ticket to our country becoming second-rate.

Sorry for the rant. It's my birthday, this is my present to myself ?!?!?

But, then, actually got an e-mail from a forum member who said he really liked it. Also, a mandolin/guitar/bass player, so maybe another musical contact.

Since I worked full days last Saturday and Sunday on a last-minute enhancement, I took Friday off -- my birthday. Biked from 9:20 to 12:00, did 30.25 miles, my 1st time biking on a weekday, the roads in Jessamine and southern Woodford county were about as lightly traveled as when I bike on Sunday morning. A little much for 3rd time out, and it was ~88 degrees and humid.

I was going out again this morning, but too sore. Spent 3.5 hours yesterday cleaning up the damage (leaves) from the hailstorm we had last Wednesday. I filled 6 big leaf bags, after my wife had filled our herbie-curbie a few days before. The hailstorm was weird, we had pea-to-marble sized hail up to 2 inches deep at places in our yard. The trees were shredded. It was really strange walking around right after it, the air smelled like an evergreen air-freshener is supposed to smell, from the shredded leaves -- very, very pleasant smell. But, hail in June instead of April, weather screwy, global warming, global warming ... ;->

Had a great fine dining experience for my birthday at Azur. They have an elk rack that is totally delicious, but pricey enough that I save it for special occasions. Then last night grilled out with another couple, 1st time, the husband is a jazz guitarist, plays an electrified classical (?!?!?), plays wonderful stuff -- really hard to play -- but he's not really much of a jammer. Still, I learned 3-4 licks from him in the short time we played together last night. I'd love to be able to play more of that style of music.

Grilled sweet tater fries (2 more converts), asparagus, portabellos, and swordfish (yum!). The wife brought a very nice salad, artichoke and palm hearts. My wife made ruby relaxers:

In a 16 glass with (crushed) ice, combine 1 jigger peach schnappes; 1 jigger cocoanut run; 1 jigger vodka; fill with pineapple juice, add a spash of cranberry juice.

Very tasty, a very nice fruity drink.

So today I'm loafing and recuperating, might have to break out the hammock. Tonight, I think I'm just going to BBQ a chicken, grill some veggie, and make some red beans & rice.

Living to eat or eating to live? Moot point, I think. At my age, biologically I'm not supposed to be here anyway.

More later on reading and music.

What Global Warming?

So last weekend the wif and I left Thursday am for a trip to Charleston, SC, followed by a visit to our son and daughter-in-law (and my baby sister and her family) in Morrisville, NC. So at around 4:30 p, 5/17/7, we are about 30 miles northwest of Charleston when we start noticing haze/fog/smoke? It gets worse as we get into Charleston. Crossing Charleston Bay (the Prius' GPS was seriously surprised that the bridge it knew about was no longer there), you couldn't see a mile. We get to the place we're staying and get out you can clearly smell cypress in the smoke. Ask around, it's from the fires in Florida, ~ 300 miles away. And I'm thinking, increased temperature, increased O2 in the atmosphere, both global warming side effects, both give more and longer fires ...

Then a couple hours later, walking along a marina there on Charleston Bay, we see a manatee feeding -- way cool, 2 ft wide by 9-10 long, looked like he weighted at least a half ton, bright white propeller scan on his back. And I'm thinking, I thought these guys stayed down in Florida? And three people I ask all say, I thought they stayed in Florida. And I'm thinking, species moving north, global warming, global warming ...

But, the next day, someone told me that manatees weren't uncommon there, and when I got home, wikipedia said that they have been seen as far north as Cape Cod (they like to hang out by power plants, always warm there).

So, maybe it's not The End Days of Global Warming. But, at this point, it is pretty much an accepted scientific fact. Al Gore's movie is very entertaining, but also very scary. My wife was telling me about a coworker, a pharmacist, former military, dedicated republican/bushite, expounding on how there is no global warming, that data has been misinterpreted and misrepresented by people with green agendas. If that is not a case of projection, I don't know what is. Scientists who misrepresent data lose their credibility and their jobs. The only thing I have heard of re misrepresentation of data is that of the many documented cases of republican political hack appointees who have edited scientific reports and removed anything that did not fit in with their political views/goals.

It's kind of funny tho. I feel fairly confident that there is no "green cabal" in the scientific community. Too many scientists (basically 100%) believe that the data supports human-generated global warming for it to be a cabal. But, (the funny tho part), I have no trouble believing that the neocon republican leadership is a cabal working to their own agenda, one of the top items of which is protecting big oil. So who's the paranoid?

Biked this morning, much better, 25 miles in 2h0m. Still, I was dying at about the 50 minute mark and took a 10 minute break. I think the problem may be, that since I have quit smoking, I have gone from 0-4 oz of alcohol a day to around 3-6, and I think that I have quit paying attention to my hydration when drinking. I used to pretty much always drink 3-4 oz water (in addition to mixers) for each oz of alcohol. I think I need to get back to serious hydration. In another month or two, when more of my "want a smoke" routines have timed out and been put into mental hibernation (hopefully), I will cut back on the drinking.

Until then, as Albert Collins says:

I don't care what other people thinkin'
I'm not drunk, I'm just drinkin'.

Rolling In It

Played the natural scientist the other day. Question is, why do dogs love so to roll in stinky stuff? Answer, what do they mostly like to roll in? Dead stuff and crap. Dogs are pack animals, and creatures of their noses. So, a dog is away from the pack, finds something good, i.e., a dead animal to eat or the spoor of a live animal to hunt, how does it let the pack know? I don't think dogs have a bee dance. So, they roll in it and get all stinky, when they return to the pack it will definitely know something is up.

Just finished reading "Superluminal" by Tony Daniel. It's a sequel to "Metaplanetary", with apparently one or more books to go. I think I prefer when a book is n of m that they let you know. It's an interesting world, but maybe has too many threads going.

Movie-wise, watched "Finding Neverland" -- sweet movie, a real tear-jerker.

BTW, wound up going 7 days without a drink. Didn't notice much difference.

Biking last weekend was 37.25 miles, 3 hours. Lillard's Ferry Rd seems to run along the Kentucky River, but on such a steep palisade that you can't see the river. Had to walk the bike up the hill that went down to a creek near its junction with the Kentucky. Going down the hill, per my odometer, hit 37.5 mph -- a new record!

Thursday night, drove the magic car to Danville and back. Got 53.5 mpg going and 55.5 mpg coming back. 28 miles, 1/2 gallon of gas each way. My wife drives it 4-5 times a week and fills her exploder up twice a week. I'm trying to talk her into trying the magic car, she says I enjoy the magic car so much she doesn't want to drive it. She will give in to the temptation eventually, I guess.

Insert Snappy Title Here Redux

Still enjoying the Prius. 500 miles on it, averaging 44 mpg. Got 48 going to Louisville and back. Sometimes tho, it's like "stop obsessing and just drive the damn car" -- but I did drive for 10 minutes on a flat narrow country road at 20 mph and it stayed pretty much all electric, ooh, ahh. I have found the touch that keeps the gas off.

No biking for 3 weekends -- cold and rainy. Then, weekend before last, did 30 miles. Last weekend I overdid it. 20 miles to High Bridge. I'd never been there, nice little park, beautiful overlook. Then, brain fart, I decided to take the scenic route home. Total wound up 45.6 miles, 4 hours, 3 stops on the way home. I was almost thinking of calling someone to come get me, but I made it home.

On a more personal note, after noting that I had had multiple drinks all but maybe 3 nights in the last month, I decided to go on the wagon for a while (at least to get my tolerance down). So, 4 days, don't notice much difference. Still bored.

Finished "Guns, Germs, and Steel", the 2nd Jared Diamond I have read. I think I liked "The Third Chimpanzee" a little better, moderate duplication here, still lots of FFTKAT:

• Basic premise: primarily geographic accidents determined which continents and peoples got started first, with the things needed to develop civilization, such that they then kicked the other peoples asses when they ran into them later.
• The fertile crescent with its Mediterranean climate was the perfect place on earth for plant domestication (crops and farming) to begin. Also, out of 14 total large mammals domesticated by humans (it's hard), 9 were in Eurasia, including all of the big 5 (pigs, goats, sheep, cows, horses).
• Farming => population density => specialized classes in society => states => writing => technology => ass kickers.
• "Greatest surprise in human history" -- Madagascar was colonized in 500 AD by Austronesians from Borneo, 4000 miles away!
• I had read elsewhere and forgotten, 1st alphabetic (as opposed to ideographic or syllabic) written language was Semitic/Hebrew, and all other written alphabets came from there.
• 1st alphabetic Greek inscription, from 740 BC: "Whoever of all dancers performs most nimbly will win this vase as a prize." -- so, 1st prize in a dance contest.
• 2nd alphabetic Greek inscription: "I am Nestor's delicious drinking cup. Whoever drinks from this cup swiftly will the desire of fair-crowned Aphrodite sieze him." -- true historical import, the discovery of beer goggles! I had no idea history was so much fun!
• The book finishes with, History as a Science, instead of a collection of random facts. Good stuff.

Music wise, got the new Ben Folds, "Songs for Silverman", very good, 4 stars. Got the new Aimee Mann, "The Forgotten Arm", OK, I may like it better as I listen more, 3 stars. Got the new Dave Matthews, "Stand Up". Track 11, "Stolen Away on 55th and 3rd" was the 1st song in years that I listened to and immediately said, I've got to hear that again. So, I've listened to it about 30 times in the last week. Totally memetic hook, no chorus, no bridge, 6 notes in the verse (1 alternate), 10-12 lines of words repeated hypnotically for 4:16. 4 Stars for "Stand up", 5 for track 11.

My youngest also left me "Funeral", by The Arcade Fire. Very nice, peppy British punk, kind of like The Kinks in places, almost 4 stars, 3 for now, may get upgraded. Wow, just read a review at Barnes & Noble, its about deaths of family members and post-apocalyptic stuff. I guess I missed that part ...

A Black Day

My tag line today was: "Four more years of the evil empire -- I heard they start construction on the Death Star at the first of the year".

My response to my older, Mainer, Bush-backing brother. He really didn't rub it in much at all, I just needed to rant.

>>> Talked to 2 different independents today, one in 20's, one in 40's, both of whom indicated they would vote for Saddam for president before they voted for Hilary.

I'm starting to think we should push the constitutional amendment to let Ahnold become president. I like the CA republican mix: fiscal responsibility (pre-bush republican), but socially fwd (pro-choice, stem cell research, gay rights).

I don't think Kerry vs W make a difference in Iraq. It is a BFM (Big Fucking Mess), and will be for years to come. The Daily Show (my only source of broadcast news -- altho I did also watch NBC and CNN last night) of course read the excepts from daddy-Bush's memoirs on why he didn't go on to Baghdad: no exit strategy, no way it could be anything but a BFM.

The only upside of the BFM is that I was definitely getting the impression after they rolled through Iraq (after rolling through Afghanistan) that Syria and Iran were next -- same type of badmouthing Iraq got pre-invasion was starting up. Hopefully we don't have to worry about that for a while.

I have heard from 2 places that we are constructing 14 long-term bases in Iraq, but have not read it anywhere. Have your heard/seen this? I agree with you, it's about the oil. Oilman president => war in Middle East.

I believe that, after rolling through Afghanistan, we still had tremendous support for War on Terrorism, and could have done some serious good. Then, the hard-on for Iraq ("he tried to kill my daddy", who the fuck knows the real reason). Now, 10s or 100s of 1000s of new Islamic martyr recruits. Real reason: Wolfowitz doctrine? US as hyperpower can do whatever the fuck we want, so let's conquer some oil-rich countries?

I have felt since day 1 of Iraq, Osama was laughing gleefully when we invaded. Iraq, despite Saddam being your typical bloody-minded dictator (like some of the ones we {used to?} prop up in South America), was actually a fairly moderate Arab state: Women could go to school, learn to read, hold jobs, lots of other horrible westernized stuff. Osama wants the return of the Shariat, the return of the Caliphate, the good old days of serious Islam from the 13th century. (The Christians at least don't want to go back to the past -- they just wish the rapture would hurry up and get here -- hard to decide who are the greater dumbasses.)

We are the hyperpower now, and, before Iraq, were in a great position to really do some good. When you are the biggest, toughest hombre, you are still a fool to behave like the neighborhood bully. The dweebs will gang up on you no matter how big you are. Prior to Bush, for maybe 10 years the US would usually try to do right, and carry out morally defensible actions: Somalia, Yugoslavia. Now, it's, we do whatever we feel like, because we can.

Blagh. I really do feel like we are now being governed by evil men. They are zealots who convinced themselves that everyone wants to be just like us (and fuck, they didn't need the military, another 10 years of Brittany Spears would have done the job), and, with typical Christian side deals with Jebus, I am sure have already received absolution for lining their pockets via Haliburton and the rest. Their power base has been built by playing to the worst parts of human nature: fear; look out for #1 above all else; and mindless conservatism. They show a totally shameless cynicism, knowing that if you tell a lie often enough, x percent of people will start believing it, and feeling that because they are working for "the greater good" of realpolicik and corporate domination, every dirty trick and smear tactic are justified. The Daily Show had some great clips of Cheney biting some reporter's head off "I categorically never said that", followed by 2 clips of Cheney saying exactly the thing he was denying having said. They are fucking liars.

I find conservatism to be an offensively stupid worldview. At some level, it always involves the belief that some fucking non-existent "golden age" in the past was better than now. So, when exactly was that? I have always loved how the Christian broadcasting channels fill dead time with Westerns. Ah, the old west, when the good guys wore white, the bad guys black, none of this Miranda stuff, just shoot the guys in black. And, women had three professions open to them: wife, schoolteacher, or prostitute. The good old days! The 50's? I still remember the nuclear attack drills in grade school. The ... whenevers? Let's face it, right now is the best time ever to have lived. My only regret is I wasn't born 50 years later than I was.

And, you pegged it on the Bible-thumping stuff. Exit polls, bush's strongest area of support, moral values, 85-15 bush. Fucking dumbass christians. So, you can be a brain-addled, former alchoholic and cokehead, run the Jebus program because you don't have enough of your own personality to do anything else -- praise Jeebus! It seriously concerns me that we have a gene pool heavily selected for the religous fanaticism gene. They are what carried the election, every "public christian" on my street had a Bush sign in their front yard. Well, maybe they'll have gene therapy for it soon.

Of course, when you're are born with a silver spoon in your mouth and get to be president by inheritance, you tend to want to keep the nice, conservative, feudal values going.

So, brother, I know you're buying all this. If you like, I can maybe hook you up with a discount ACLU membership.

Well, I think I'm done -- you shouldn't have told me I was being a "better sport". That is pretty much the essence of my barroom political rants of the last five years -- and I haven't even had a drink this evening, that's probably my problem. Hope you enjoyed!

Chris

Writer's Blogck?

5 weeks since last post. Guess I really don't have much to say. Another version in the can, defect counts very low, spending a week in Manzillo, Mexico in a couple of weeks -- life is good I guess.

I read the 4th of my boss's books, "Elegant Universe", by Brian Greene. Superstring theory. So, to combine the standard model of elementary particles, quantum, and general relativity, you need 11 dimensions? I guess you can make it work. 4 dimensions for spacetime, 7 for the rest. Plus, your smallest components are strings that can't get smaller than the Planck length. So, not having to deal with anything smaller than the Planck length gets rid of the infinities you normally get in renormalizing the quantum wave functions -- duh. Seems like you should be able to get the very hairy math to work, but, is that really how it works? I guess if you are a positivist like Hawking, you don't care -- if the math works, use it. But, maybe the three strong forces (em, strong nuclear, weak) are fundamentally different from gravity -- they weren't meant to be unified.

Read some sci-fi from the library -- standard escapist fare: "Crescent City Rhapsody", by Kathleen Ann Goonan, "Crossfire" by Nancy Kress. Both OK, the Kress a little disappointing, she's normally better than that. My to-read sci-fi stack is great right now: short story collections by Simmons and Jablokov, a Kim Stanley Robinson, Charles Stross's debut hardback novel "Singularity Sky" (I have really been looking forward to that, his short stories in Year's Best have been fantastic), a new John Barnes, and "Quicksilver" by Neal Stephenson. Life is good.

I would suspect part of the reason I have been blogging less is that I have been drinking a lot more. I seem to have gone from weekend drinking to 5 days a week drinking. With an alcoholic father and brother, that's not good. The death of my wife's brother (51 yrs old, motorcycle accident, no helmet, what an incredibly stupid fucking waste) did not help. I'm not really that worried. I'll try to have two good sober weeks before Mexico.

Almost a Religious Exprerience

I have been working too much lately -- and yesterday, we just moved our code freeze date out three weeks -- no rest for the wicked. Anyway, I am getting wore out. I don't believe in stress. I am pretty good at keeping my interrupt stack at managable levels (3-7), and stopping and reminding myself that I enjoy what I am doing. But, I do get wore out after a while. I am definitely ready for my sushi and beer (Asahi) Friday night.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I had an experience that I would mostly attribute to being tired. I was having my 1st smoke of the day at ~6:30 am, and thinking about intelligent design. It just don't work. It's like the USSR and their 10 year plans -- you just can't plan things that well. Of course, an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent being could, but I can't come up with any model of such a being that even vaguely works. Instead, you start with one principle, survival of the fittest, apply it to a system with imperfect replication, and ecosystems or economies grow. I bought an evolutionary biology textbook to see what the definition of an ecological niche was, and it was pretty much as I expected: an n-dimensional volume in the n-dimensional space of environmental parameters. Plus, they are highly fractal. Nothing ever perfectly fills a niche, leaving a smaller niche, leaving a smaller niche ...

So I was thinking this and said to my myself, all it takes is that, "Something is" (belief #1).

Whoa, the two words "Something is" started rolling around in my left internal aural field, echoing back and forth like thunder rolling across the sky. "Holy shit, it's a religious experience!" I thought immediately. That realization was enough to stop it, but wow, what an odd feeling.

I didn't realize until I thought about it later that it was localized to my left side. More on that and Julian Jaynes in a future entry.

Anyway, it made me think. I have read a couple of places in the last year or so (I think in the issue of Wired with iSmell in it), that most religious experiences can be induced by simulating the proper regions of the brain with electromagnetic fields. So, you spend years meditating or practicing some other similar disciplne to attain satori or samadhi, and all you're doing is getting some regions of your brain that don't normally fire to fire. Is it worth the effort if you can just turn on the satori-o-matic instead? I guess if you're young, you say, yes, it's not real otherwise. But, when you're old, you say, who's got the time, give me the juice (or the sushi and beer).

One of the problems with the totally rational view of brain function is that it does somehow trivialize mental activity and accomplishments -- just an interesting or abnormal pattern of neurons firing. So maybe concepts like "soul", "self", etc although unreal, are actually tokens of meaning. One of the primary functions of the mind is to act as a meaning generator -- so that even thought this stuff doesn't exist, we pretend it does as a base of our meaning structures???

Hmm, this needs more thought ...

I got a pretty good idea of the limitations of my mental sofware when I was VP of software development for Renlar Systems from 1987-1995. This was a small (50 people, 15 in development, $5m annual sales) company selling a pharmacy vertical. In 1986, I was working for my own consulting company. A good friend of mine, the founder/president of Renlar, asked me to come in and run development there. I liked what I was doing, but I owed him favors, and he was and is a good friend, so I agreed to do it for 1 year -- and wound up doing it for 8.

It was highly interrupt driven. I found out during that time, I feel most comfortable working on 2-4 things at a time, using normal scheduling algorithms of filling down time on one thing with work on another. I could go up to about 7 things without thrashing. (The standard computer OS definition of thrashing is when you spend all your time deciding what to do, such that you never actually do anything). Above 7 levels of interrupt, I start thrashing. I decided to quit the job when the following happened: I was around 20 levels deep on the interrupt stack when our best sales guy came to the door of my office and started talking about something he had to have. I looked at him and could see his lips moving, but I couldn't hear a word he was saying. "Whoa -- red stack overflow." My mind was rejecting any new interrupts. At that point, the thought was definitely "I'm out of here -- this place has broke my brain." -- so I started looking for a different job and left shortly thereafter.

Possibility Space and The Chopstick of Doom

If my artistic skills weren't completely atrophied, I could do a picture or animation. But, they are, so, picture this:

Take a string 15" long, and thumbtack it to a table in front of your left hand. Pick up the free end with your right hand and hold the string at a 45 degree angle. Then take a chopstick (originally a pencil, but The Chopstick of Doom has a nice ring to it) in your left hand; place it next to the thumbtack; then slide it along the table towards the right. The moving chopstick represents your life passing; the distance of the string from the table represents your possibilty space -- the things you can do with your life. As your life passes, your possibility space decreases. When the chopstick meets the end of the string, the string is on table. This is you on your deathbed, when you have only one possibility: you're going to die.

The change of course really isn't smooth. There are times in your life when you collapse many possibilities into a single future: when you decide where to go to college or who to marry; when you pick your major or career; when you start or change jobs.

Do you ever get chances to increase your possibility space? Yes, I think so. Mid-life career changes, divorce, moving to a new city -- these can all do it.

A bad mental trap I think it is easy to fall into is to dwell on the possibilities that you did not choose ("the path not taken"). Doing this evokes the bittersweet emotion, which can be pleasant. But, I think it is basically your death wish talking to you. I think about the past very little. I learn lessons or form theories based on experience that I fit into my worldview, then I forget the details and move on. We all live life in the Now, whether we like it or not. We can affect the future, so that is what we should focus on ("the future, the future"). The past is dead and gone, forget it.

I have learned that memories fade if you don't reinforce them by remembering them. After replaying a memory, you can now additionally remember yourself remembering the memory, and remembering remembering ... ad infinitum. All this burns it into your neurons. Refuse to think about an unpleasant memory, and it will fade (neuron activation potentials increase when the neuron is not fired frequently?).

I have always enjoyed the bittersweet emotion. Fall is my favorite time of year, everything dying :-> I think it has to do with genes for alcoholism, which I think give a tendency to depression and represent a death wish. I think I have moved past that tho.

The antebellum South (re "Gone with the Wind") was the essence of bittersweet. It was stately and beautiful, but it was rotten at the core with slavery. I think that The Band's self titled album "The Band" really had the Southern bittersweet thing down. Then you find out, Robbie Robertson is from Toronto and got his info on the South from reading Faulkner when he was a teenager! Still, one of my top 50 albums.