Cumulative Model

31556926 Seconds/Year (Google search)
303824646 Population of US (2007 est, cia world factbook)
$13860000000000 Annual GDP of US (2007 est, cia world factbook)

(13860000000000 $/year) / (303824646 people*31556926 seconds/year) = .0014456 $/person-second

30 miles/gallon at 55mph (source, est from graphic)
23 miles/gallon at 75mph (source, est from graphic)
25 miles/gallon at 70mph (source, est from graphic)
28 miles/gallon at 65mph (source, est from graphic)
3.62 $/gallon May 4th US average (source)
1.63 person/vehicle (source)
3600 second/hour

(3.62 $/gallon * 55 mi/hour) / (30 miles/gallon * 3600 second/hour * 1.63 people) = .001131 $/person-second

(3.62 $/gallon * 75 mi/hour) / (23 miles/gallon * 3600 second/hour * 1.63 people) = .002012 $/person-second

(3.62 $/gallon * 70 mi/hour) / (25 miles/gallon * 3600 second/hour * 1.63 people) = .001727 $/person-second

(3.62 $/gallon * 65 mi/hour) / (28 miles/gallon * 3600 second/hour * 1.63 people) = .001432 $/person-second

Of course, this assumes that your daughter and grandmother are as likely to be the 1.63 occupants as you and your wife.

(Also, I don't like that consumption curve. That 55mph tripe is based on old vehicles, and may also include big trucks. I know my 2002 Mazda protégé is at 3400RPM at 75mph, still in the flat part of the torque curve.)

Like AGW itself, the cost of moderate regulation is probably greatly exaggerated. It won't cause the end of civilization.

But what if we're wrong? What would be more costly, if Alarmists are wrong, or if Skeptics are wrong? Which is more dangerous?

Cass Sunstein's book Worst Case Scenarios is a good start at contemplating what we don't know.

Recommendation

Dr. Sunstein considers many modes of thought and the book should get you thinking.

Throughout the book Dr. Sunstein uses two main narratives to examine how people react to uncertainty, Terrorism and Global Warming. He provides a very PC perspective, probably to better reach a broad audience and get them thinking about how we deal with what we don't know. The book is an exercise to get the lay person thinking about uncertainty rather than an objective analysis of how to deal uncertainties. It should get the reader to consider how we over and under react and how costly that is.

Sunstein makes the very good point that people have over-reacted to the historic risk level of terrorism (with much unnecessary cost in life and resources) and explores several reasons why. He also makes the point that probabilities alone are not enough to make decisions. Context is also important. That said, he possibly over emphasizes the fact that people over-react to more highly salient risks and he fails to thoroughly consider why people react strongly to risks involving justice and intent (especially that there is also a signaling component).

While most of us make the mistake of over-reacting to highly salient risks, Sunstein does the opposite. He makes the mistake of greatly exaggerating the risks of Global Warming. For the sake of argument, he makes up numbers. But the numbers are absurdly high, even when considering them as the likelihood that a risk will increase rather than the likelihood of an actual event happening or not.

When dealing with the uncertainty created by human actions, Sunstein also neglects uncertainty that already exists. The human component of global warming is small (and the greenhouse gas component of that is less than half). A large amount of uncertainty exists whether we reduce CO2 emissions or not. Building a particle accelerator creates a small, immeasurable risk of catastrophe. But Earth is surrounded by many particle accelerators which bombard the Earth and even produce collisions. Building one doesn't significantly affect the level of risk we face (and may provide us with knowledge that will help us avoid other risks).

The biggest qualm is that Sunstein advocates a policy of generational neutrality. He makes a good rhetorical argument, but logic is not on his side. He notes the consensus among economists that future lives should be discounted is unraveling. And unraveling is an apt term. The principle was long considered obvious to economists for the reason that it is obvious. When Sunstein asks whether the life of a 10 year old today is worth more than the life of a 10 year in 2040, he quickly answers, as many would like to, "No." But he fails to consider the obvious; that a 10 year old now will have 10 year olds of his own in 2040.

As to which is more dangerous, I think it's clear that regulation is far more dangerous than diversified growth. It's just that the imagery of catastrophic events associated with AGW (which is very unlikely to be mitigated by proposed regulation) is much more salient than the alternative of a much bigger, healthier, and wealthier future population.

Catastrophic events are discrete, but economic growth is compounding. So small changes in the growth rate make a big difference in well being over time. That's why a life now is worth more than a life in the future, because it affects the well being of the future. A catastrophic event that happens in the future will affect a smaller portion of wealthier society.

And it's unknown whether we are making catastrophes more or less likely.

This is out of Oxford!

It's nice that people are starting to think more about what we don't know, but it'd be nicer if they'd think a little harder.

Cass Sunstien does a better job, and he's a lawyer.

Bush is suprized that some analysts say we'll see $4 gas this summer.

Sure, it may happen. It's even plausible that it'll stay there.

But the implication that $4 gas will be the norm this summer is ridiculous. No suprize that Bush thought the idea was ridiculous. If he was keeping up on trivia like that, then I'd be really worried. That'd mean we really might see $4 gas in our futures.

This article (via ClimateDebateDaily.com) and these posts by Arnold Kling got a chuckle out of me.

CDD introduces the New Yorker article thusly:

“The carbon footprint of apples imported to New York from New Zealand can be less than for apples from fifty miles away. How can people make the right decisions? The answer is ...”

The answer is way simpler than anything proposed in article.

To begin, of course things will be missed and there will be unrecognized distortions and mistakes made in any method used to calculate carbon emissions or Green House Gas equivalents. Counting airplane stickers and carbon units are likely to mislead you, but getting an accurate measure isn’t necessary to reduce your energy consumption (and therefore GHG emissions). There is a better and easier way that has been in practice for thousands of years.

Cost. Reduce your costs: Reduce your consumption: Reduce your emissions.

It won’t always be perfect (there are always distorting effects), but in general dollars represent energy, whether it be from calories or solar panels, that ultimately comes from the fossil fuels needed to develop and produce them (energy produced from solar panels will reduce costs once/if-ever the output exceeds the manufacturing and development requirements). Common to all goods and services, and included in the price, is the effort/energy to produce, transport, and develop products, perform services, and to sustain the producers, creative minds, politicians, and managers.

Cost should almost perfectly translate into energy consumption. Whether it’s the cost of transportation fuel, electricity for production, or producing the calories to feed employees and bureaucrats who regulate, in some way costs ultimately translate into energy resources. Somewhere in price is all the energy used directly in production and indirectly by financing the consumption of employees, owners, or funding of government welfare programs. Even for scarce, highly demanded materials (like diamonds) the price includes energy efforts to locate, extract, transport, and regulate. Beyond that, the high price funds the carbon intensive lifestyles of profiteers.

Things do get a little fuzzy. Just because someone profits highly doesn’t mean that they will consume more. The best way to be carbon efficient is to be prodigious in work and investment and frugal in spending. By investing, people can increase the production and decrease the costs (energy needed) of the goods and services that satiate the demands and desires of others. By minimizing cost and maximizing profits, we automatically meet more people’s demands, more fully, with fewer resources. The two things that people are most meticulous in measuring are their efforts and their finances. And, as shown here, when activities pose an externality on others, people are excellent at making them accountable.

Things do get even fuzzier. As mentioned in the New Yorker article, GHG like methane don’t correspond to price quite as well. However, growth in such emissions is much lower than CO2 (and emissions may possibly even be declining). And looking out more broadly, such gas levels are likely to be ultimately determined by interplay of the broader biosphere and atmosphere as CO2 concentrations increase. Regardless, if warming is your concern, you should be more focused on changes to lands and water. Changes to albedo and increases in humidity driven by changes in land use may cause more warming than the GHGs. And energy/carbon efficient practices aren’t necessarily less polluting. Shipping is more efficient than trucking and produces less GHGs, but produces far more pollution.

UPDATE: Wow! Solar panels may take more than I thought.

Conservation effort.

We need a National Horn Day!

One day a year. At every traffic light. When the light turns green. Everyone presses into their horn until they get to the speed limit.

People need to learn that efficiency means efficiency, both in time and fuel.



Save Gas: Avoid Brakes!

Accelerate Faster

Why Peak Torque

High Gas Prices Are Destroying My Fuel Economy

The Big Deal About Gas Prices

Is Gasoline a Giffen Good

Econlog had a post on The Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids last week and the Economist had a post on Children as a Public Good. One positive social and selfish good that was overlooked is using population growth strategically in war as a signal to stave off aggression. The Make Love and War argument.

Population has always been a major component of war. The ideas of chivalry and sending men off to war and not women probably comes from the fact that the number of women in a society ultimately determines the upper bounds of potential population growth and ability to recover following a war.

Low population growth is viewed as a weakness by al Qaeda types and is a very big part of why they attack us.

Make the world safer by having more babies! In the interest of national security, we could create a tax holiday for households who have a baby in the 9-12 months following any significant terrorist attack.

This has three important impacts: 1) Increase in population growth, 2) A shift in timing of population growth that could send a powerful signal, and 3) Most strongly incentivizing childbirth for higher income (and, therefor, IQ and productivity) households.

It makes clear both the futility and absurdity of al Qaeda, and highlights the strength of the higher value given to women in the west and the higher proportion of women in our population.

Simply adopting a like policy could impact birthrates and fight terrorism by making it clear that even the mere thought of violence by a potential terrorist will cause ten more western women to get pregnant.

Safety in numbers you know.



One negative, which I hope is quite small, is that, primarily in the lower middle class, it would lead to bad long-term decisions to achieve a short-term gain.

It also presents as a type of social engineering policy, typically frowned on, in a more acceptable framework (tax cuts and national security).

Knowing that I'd eventually breakdown and buy Tyler Cowen's new book, I pre-ordered and participated in his personal-podcast experiment.

I asked Tyler what he thought about my contention that gas taxes, like cap and trade, could lead to traffic problems and increased gas consumption. He graciously responded here.

In an effort to stave off Global Warming, the Vatican has become "Carbon Neutral" by growing trees in Hungry.

Whooops!

Oh the irony.

[and they don't even address the problem that most trees don't pull much CO2 out of the air, they put most of it back, and ultimately they release all the carbon back into the atmosphere, much of it as methane and other more powerful GHGs. I wonder if they're deciduous trees, which basically convert a good chunk of CO2 into methane every year.

Oh, for those who don't want to do the reading, the paper says due to albedo and water transport/feedback effects, unless they covering very dark soil AND in the tropics, trees cause warming.]

The Economist asks.

I think I know the answer.

Update: What I describe isn't Giffen behavior, Giffen behavior is substituting a superior good with more of an inferior because the increase in price makes the superior good impractical to buy in sufficient quantity. It's a rational behavior, where what I describe is irrational. The Economist has a good clarification.

There no real superior good similar to gasoline, higher gas might cause people to use more to do more work to have gas for their leizure and personal business, but this is highly unlikely and wouldn't have much impact. It's not the same.

[related: What's the Big Deal About Gas Prices]

Prompted by previous posts here and here and here.

A simplified description:

The load on the engine is about same regardless of which gear you are in, the RPMs being lower than peak torque doesn't mean much for fuel consumption. A lot more fuel is injected into the cylinders to provide the power needed to keep the car going at the lower engine speed, and power transmission (for acceleration) is less efficient at the lower engine speed.

Think of your car's mechanics as a set of springs that transfer all the forces acting on the car to the crankshaft. In order to provide the same power in less cycles per minute, more power must be provided by each piston in each cycle (more fuel, bigger explosion). But at slower engine speeds, not all of the blast energy is transferred to the crankshaft. The piston doesn't move as much during the blast (the blast occurs in a smaller space) so more of the energy becomes heat (some of the blast also becomes strain on the piston rod and cylinder). At about 3500 rpm, the pistons are moving at a speed that allows the explosive force to best transfer to the piston (the explosion is pushing as much as possible on the piston during the entire stroke). After 3500 RPM, the piston is moving so fast that not all of the explosive force acts on the piston.

It's also a lot like riding a bicycle. At high gears and low speed, you might not even be able to push hard enough to get going. You mostly just put a lot of strain on the chain. Instead, you use a lower gear and pedal less hard at a more comfortable, medium pace. Once you get going faster, you'll notice that you're spinning the pedals faster, but there is almost no resistance at all and you're wasting a lot of energy moving your feet so fast. So you upshift, resistance increases slightly, your pedaling slows slightly, and you're a lot more comfortable.

Wow! Just wow!

People think they're saving gas by taking it easy on the throttle, THEY ARE NOT!!

I'm hitting more traffic lights and having to sit through multiple light cycles. I'm getting way less MPG.

More time on the road and more stops = more gas burned.

And engines are most efficient between 3000 and 4000 RPM. The extra fuel spent getting up to speed faster is negligible (you may even use less fuel).

(see also, Save Gas: Avoid Brakes!

and, Accelerate Faster

and, Why Peak Torque

and, The Big Deal About Gas Prices

and, Is Gasoline a Giffen Good

and, Horn Day)

UPDATE: An analogy to clarify:

It's also a lot like riding a bicycle. At high gears and low speed, you might not even be able to push hard enough to get going. You mostly just put a lot of strain on the chain. Instead, you use a lower gear and and pedal less hard at a more comfortable, medium pace. Once you get going faster, you'll notice that you're spinning the pedals faster but there is almost no resistance at all and you're wasting a lot of energy moving your feet so fast. So you upshift; resistance increases slightly, your pedalling slows slightly, and you're a lot more comfortable.

Does a Barrymore shit in the woods?

(see also Love in the Time of Cholera)

I'm not a violent person. But right now I'd like to curbie a few people at Apple.

I have chronic pain problems. Lot's of issues with repetitive stress.

I spent a lot of time ripping my music onto my hard-drive and suffered a lot of pain due to the process. Now, most of it is gone. iTunes won't play it. Don't know why. Can't locate it.

Someone needs to die.

Just askin'?

I'm tempted to give this a try.

I certainly don't hold "Megan's view" on AGW policy against her. She basically assumed the Economists position when she started working for them. I believe she implied as much shortly before or after the blog started. Not provable, but it looks like she's insincerely pulling the band wagon for the economist. Note that just before she made a provocative post, she provided a forum that would bring together much of the arguments against "her position". Megan seems to be shilling for the Non-catastrophic AGW movement.

Sure it's a bit sloppy, but there's also a lot of very good information compiled in the thread.

And don't everyone forget to look at Nir Shaviv's sciencebits.com blog, in particular the CO2orSolar post and comments. Also the Cosmic Ray Flux Link and his primer on climate sensitivity. His paper on climate sensitivity. And where he politely takes climate fundamentalists to task on their own territory (and they state that even though he's probably right, he shouldn't get any attention because he jumped the gun in making claims previously).

Naughty, subversive elf.

Really?! Who's trying to move the football?

And, who's not falling for it?

Not me for one.

The Economist has developed a very strange concept of "insurance". It advocates anti-global-warming policies as "insurance". Funny that the insurance industry insures by saving and investing so that resources are available to be moved where they are needed when the unexpected happens instead of spending recklessly and frantically on unproven, highly speculative, risk mitigation efforts.

Doug Feith's office made the entire case for war, that Saddam controlled al Qaeda, and they did it 6 months after the invasion.

To summarize: Kevin Drum quotes an article written by Stephen Hayes about a memo, drafted in Oct. 2003, as if it were Doug Feith's words. He insinuates that he lied and railroaded us into the Iraq war with a memo written 6 months after the invasion and based much on intelligence gathered as a result of the invasion.

Words matter, so do false attributions and dates.

UPDATE: Apparently, providing both actual and likely instances of Saddam/al Qaeda relations is the same as using the politically charged phrase "Operational Relationship".

IPCC Report

Some amuzing observations:

The Sum of Calculated Individual Contributions to Increased Sea Levels is less than the contribution of just the Antartic Ice Sheets. Where did the extra water go, did it evaporate?

The summation is also shown to have a greater amount of certainty than the individual components:

Rate of sea level rise (m per century)
Source of sea level rise 1961 – 2003, 1993 – 2003
Thermal expansion 0.042 ± 0.012, 0.16 ± 0.05
Glaciers and ice caps 0.050 ± 0.018, 0.077 ± 0.022
Greenland ice sheets 0.05 ± 0.12, 0.21 ± 0.07
Antarctic ice sheets 0.14 ± 0.41, 0.21 ± 0.35
Sum of individual climate
contributions to sea level rise 0.11 ± 0.05, 0.28 ± 0.07
Observed total sea level rise 0.18 ± 0.05a, 0.31 ± 0.07a
Difference
(Observed minus sum of estimated
climate contributions)
0.07 ± 0.07, 0.03 ± 0.10

And. The projections don't fit the observations:

Likelihood that trend
occurred in late 20th
century (typically post
1960) * Likelihood of a human
contribution to observed
trend --> Likelihood of future
trends based on
projections for 21st
century using SRES
scenarios

Warmer and fewer cold days
and nights over most land
areas:
Very likely * Likely --> Virtually certain

Warmer and more frequent
hot days and nights over
most land areas:
Very likely * Likely (nights) --> Virtually certain

Warm spells / heat waves.
Frequency increases over
most land areas:
Likely * More likely than not --> Very likely

Heavy precipitation events.
Frequency (or proportion of
total rainfall from heavy falls)
increases over most areas:
Likely * More likely than not --> Very likely

Area affected by droughts
increases:
Likely in many regions
since 1970s * More likely than not --> Likely

Intense tropical cyclone
activity increases:
Likely in some regions
since 1970 * More likely than not --> Likely

Increased incidence of
extreme high sea level
(excludes tsunamis):
Likely * More likely than not --> Likely

Just Sayin'.

We should be more concerned with the refugee threat from North Korea than any WMD threat.

(from Instapundit.)

Great organicaly grown Lebanese food flown in fresh.

Many people blame Bush policy for our troubles in Iraq. I think these people are incredibly narrow-minded. Our greatest weakness in Iraq is policy.

But then I started having second thoughts.

I don’t think this will be as harmful as people think. Don’t forget that crisis means opportunity.

Not allowing carry-on baggage should really simplify boarding, unboarding, and passing through security. I’m doubtful that the number of carry-on only travelers is large enough increase waits dramatically. And increasing curb-side and self check-in can speed things up even more.

By making the requirements for boarding clear and simple, we can really up efficiency.

Also screeners shouldn’t need to clear each person before the next, they can be directed to idiot lines or “to the back of the line”. And pre-screeners can walk the lines to address potential issues.

Say all you want about islamo-fascists, at least they can make the planes run on time.

I have no idea how these ended up in the middle of the desert. There was a whole pallet of these.[Used for running in sand. Thanks Ken S]

120 Degrees with 22MPH winds. Feels like when you sit too close to the fire on a windy night.

Why do leftwing blogs remind me so much of New Path lately?

accelerating slowly is to a stress position in an Asian or South American prison.

al Kout mall in Kuwait City. I bought a pair of ecco Reaction shoes, had a lamb brain salad and carrot juice, and smoked the sheesha.

I was able to get into Kuwait City yesterday on a tour of the Mosque and al Kout Mall.

Cheeziness be damned.

Comfortable, breathes, doesn't hold water. Don't need to do laundry--just hand wash in the shower, rinse with hotwater, wring, and air-or-wear dry.

Oh, and you can use it to clean your glasses.

I'm packing up all my cotton.

Times' Secret Program

The other day IT was in here to hook the nextdoor trailer up to our network. They needed to move my desk to get at the box, and when they did it collapsed. It just couldn't be put together again (it was warped).

Good. I hated my desk.

For one, I hate the height of desks. They are always too high.

I made my own desk out of stuff we had around and parts of the old desk. It was much better, the right height and the side of the old desk was just the right size for the top. However, because it wasn't fixed, my supervisor made me get ride of it (safety hazard). So now I'm using a printer stand from the office nextdoor and the drawer unit from my old desk (nice that I didn't have to move my things around).

Unfortunately it is the same height as a desk. Having experienced the comfort of an appropriately tall desk, I went to the carpentry shop yard and took a small platform to elevate my chair. Problem solved.

The only existing problem is that the printerstand is a couple inches smaller than the desk-side, which was perfect--just the right amount of workspace and small enough to keep the area open. It's a bit inconvient for shuffling papers. Oh well, can't win 'em all. But still, I like the smaller top better than the full size desktop, which for some reason, was no better for shuffling papers.

I got rid of my chair a while ago. Again (why does office funiture suck so much?), poor height, took up too much space, and I hate arm rests. I saw an article on people using exercise balls for desk chair so I gave it a try. It's much more comfortable and there are no restrictive, mispositioned armrests! And only $15 a pop (ha). The only inconvenience is having to reposition it everytime I sit down.[update : I bought a carpet remnant, so no more rolling away.]

Here's a pic (yeah, I just discovered I can upload pics today):

This is in the shade.

Here's one in the sun:

I bought a new toy. I ordered an apple 15" PowerBook Pro. It also came with 30GB iPod for an additional $90. Also, for another $90.00, I upgraded to the faster hard drive. I can't wait to get it, unfortunately it might be several weeks.

Buying it online was a pain in the ass. They may have a good product, but company runs like big government. After I picked everything I wanted out and went to purchase it, I found out that they do not deliver to APO addresses. The website said to go through AAFES. I went to a AAFES, they didn't have anything in store. The catalog said to use the AAFES website. The website was incredibly slow and of course there were no apple computers. Finally I ordered the computer to my cousins house and will have him forward it to me. This really sucks because now I have to pay Michigan tax and probably over $100.00 for shipping.

Me, outside of al Boom for a business function.

Al Boom is a replica of a 17th century wooden ship at the Radisson SAS, the interior has been turned into a resaurant.

The interior:

I bought this Lapiz Chess Set a couple of months ago. It was about $85.

I bought this wool carpet for my parents for the Mother's Day/Birthday/Father's Day Season. It's from Hariz, Iran.

Story by Alan Zarembo of the LA Times.

Joining the Mile High Club?

Some people are taking a closer look at WMD in Iraq.

I think that's a good idea, but hyping the idea that there were WMD in Iraq is really dumb. I have a feeling that the way some are spinning the reports of WMD in Iraq are setting us all up to look bad (not intentionally, of course).

Playing-up the old chem weapons scattered around as vast supplies of WMD is really dumb, and will take away from the more important themes that we should draw-on.

It would make much more sense to use the reports to provide proper perspective; reminding people that when they say "No WDM were found in Iraq", they mean it figuratively, not literally. They just didn't have large, fresh stocks and weren't actively producing WMD. They were doing research and could set-up production and testing in weeks (not days, as the brits believed).


aaron

...or: Environtoligist vs Scientologist.

...or: Spy vs Lie. (ok, that one is reaching).

I'm mostly impressed that this post generated so many comments.

Bitter got me screwing around on blogthings. Errr!

5 Factor personality test was suprisingly accurate considering I barely selected any responses:

Extroversion:
You have low extroversion.
You are quiet and reserved in most social situations.
A low key, laid back lifestyle is important to you.
You tend to bond slowly, over time, with one or two people.

Conscientiousness:
You have medium conscientiousness.
You're generally good at balancing work and play.
When you need to buckle down, you can usually get tasks done.
But you've been known to goof off when you know you can get away with it.

Agreeableness:
You have medium agreeableness.
You're generally a friendly and trusting person.
But you also have a healthy dose of cynicism.
You get along well with others, as long as they play fair.

Neuroticism:
You have medium neuroticism.
You're generally cool and collected, but sometimes you do panic.
Little worries or problems can consume you, draining your energy.
Your life is pretty smooth, but there's a few emotional bumps you'd like to get rid of.

Openness to experience:
Your openness to new experiences is high.
In life, you tend to be an early adopter of all new things and ideas.
You'll try almost anything interesting, and you're constantly pushing your own limits.
A great connoisseir of art and beauty, you can find the positive side of almost anything.
The Five Factor Personality Test

What DVDs I've recently watched (minus some of the especially bad one's, Evicted was horrible): Sin City; Strawberry Fields; Dirty Pretty Things (recommended); Aeon Flux; The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; Jarhead; V for Vendetta; Closer; the Swimming Pool; Dangerous Lives of Alterboys; Neon Genesis (collection here is spotty, so I ordered the series); Cursed; Dark Water; Waiting; Vanity Fair; Pride and Predjudice; Stay; Hustle and Flow; Crash; Time Code.

Memory is failing me, I'll update and provide links after I visit the rental again.

Too much chick music, that can't be healthy.

Tegan and Sara, So Jealous; Old Crow Medicine Show; tATu, Dangerous and Moving, 200km/h in the Wrong Lane; Porcupine Tree, Deadwing, In Absentia; Thelonious Monk Quartet w/ John Coltrane @ Carnegie Hall; White Stripes, Get Behind Me Satan; KT Tunstall, Eye to the Telescope; Paul Simon, Suprise; Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, Show Your Bones; Kings of Leon, Aha Shake Heartbreak; Nickel Creek, Why Should the Fire Die; The Tea Party, Splendor Solice; Postal Service, Give Up; Cake, Motorcade of Genorousity; The Who; Supertramp, Breakfast in America; Les Paul; Louis XIV, The Best Little Secrets Are Kept; Ken Layne and the Corvids, Fought Down; Rascal Flatts, Feels Like Today; Kanye West, Late Registration; Digible Planets, Reachin'(A New Refutation of Time and Space); Bela Fleck, Little Worlds; Rush, Spirit of the Radio; Smashing Pumpkins, Siamese Dream; Bebel Gilberto, Tanto Tempo; Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto, Getz/Gilberto; Rolling Stones, Beggar's Banquet; The Roots, Tipping Point; Pantera, Vulgar Display of Power; OMD, Sugar Tax; Janis Joplin, Super Hits; Harry Belefante, All Time Greatest Hits; Crystal Method, Vegas, Tweekend; Metallica; Coldplay, Parachutes, A Rush of Blood to the Head; Cannonball Adderly, Somethin' Else; Blues Traveler, Four; Beck, Guero; Artic Monkeys, When the Sun Goes Down (lost my album, think it made it's way back to the states w/ a co-worker); Arcade Fire, Funeral; Allison Krauss & Union Station, Live; Radiohead, OK Computer; Ramones, Mania; BT, Ima; Butthole Surfers, Independent Worm Saloon; Beach Boys, Made in USA; Franz Ferdinand; Foo Fighers, In Your Honor; Michael Buble; The Pharcyde, Labcabincalifornia; Mozart: Eleven Overtures Essential Beethoven; Chopin Piano Favorites; Nirvana, Nevermind; Hometeam, Via Satellite from Saturn; G. Love and Special Sauce; Portishead; Nine Inch Nails, Fixed ; Tool, Undertow; Sublime, Greatest Hits; Korn; Phish, A Live One, Junta; Sting, Fields of Gold, Brand New Day.

Recently ordered: Meatloaf, Bat out of Hell; Nickel Creek, Nickel Creek, This Side; Zero 7, Simple Things; Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Fever to Tell; Nelly Furtado, Loose; bt, Movement in Still-life.

I haven't seen anything live in quite a while, but I list some anyway. Most recently Charlie Daniels (Arifjan), before that Crystal Method (State Theatre, Nectorine), Darude (Space), Incubus (Cobo). Going back several years 311 (Pine Knob, St. Theatre--or was St. Andrew's?), Bare Naked Ladies (Pine Knob), Dave Matthews (Pine Knob), Metallica (Palace), Cypress Hill (Pine Knob), Fugees (Pine Knob), Primus (State Theatre), Maralyn Manson (St. Andrews), some Lalapaloozas (Pine Knob), NIN (Pine Knob), Oasis (St. Andrews), ICP (all over, Kid Rock with them sometimes), Ramones (Pheonix in Pontiac), Pearljam (Breslan), Ani Defranco (some hall in Florence), Rage against the Machine (Cobo/JLA), Kid Rock (state fair video shoot. American Badass, I think),... I'll list others as they come to me. I'm pretty sure I've seen some shows at Hill and also more at St. Andrew's and the State Theatre and Harpos.

Right now I'm reading: A Scanner Darkly, The World's Banker, Fooled by Randomness, When Genius Failed (unfortunately I lost my copy, so 'til I find another....), Crisis of Abundance, The Prince.

Here's what I've recently read or listened to: Blink, Undercover Economist, System of the World, The Fountainhead, Snow Crash, Freakonomics, The Diamond Age, The Game, Army of Davids, Shop Girl.

Efficient Driving in Wikipedia.

Further support for my previous post.

When I have the time sometime, I will look at fuel consumption curves and try to create some traffic models. I should be able to figureout what level of buy-in is needed to get my fuel saving driving to work and how much fuel and time would be saved.

[Update:Climate Change Connection cites a researcher who says it's best to use 2/3 of available power!. I actually was aware of this link long, long ago but neglected to post it.]

One advantage of getting to work at 5am every day is getting most of my work done before I wake up.

I enjoy reading the Huffington post a couple of times a week, but I'm thinking about giving it up. It's double click ads are annoying because they interfere with page navigation. I must "double click" to back up, sometimes I get dumped back onto the same page, and sometimes I back up too far.

UPDATE: It'll be tough to give up this kind of stuff though.

Sebastian Mallaby praises the administration's performance regarding AIDS treatment and prevention in the Washington Post. His quibbles are minor, the biggest being an unknown portion of abstinence and faithfulness education money is wasted on abstinence only programs.

UDATE: And there's this.

If the decimal of Pi continues infinitely without repeating, then wouldn't every conceivable number, including those with repeating patterns, exist within it?

Maybe Al Gore's film will have the benefit of people looking more closely at climate change data and possibilities. This article from Washington Post gives some hope. Here's a little snippet:

"Terrible toos," (Chris) Horner says. I'm confused. He explains that it's shorthand for environmental doom and gloom.

"Terrible toos. Too many people, using too many resources."

Smith has a different equation: "Less people, less affluence, less technology: We call that death, poverty and ignorance."

I like that. I think it could be turned into a good slogan or bumper sticker:
"Death, poverty, and ignorance won't stop Global Warming."

Ann Althouse has a good post on happiness.

Those whose children they want to have, and those they want to raise them.

(Link from Brian Gongol.)

I believe that the reason we don’t often hear a lot of complaining about inflation is because inflation is usually focused on the rich and middle-class. While there has been mild inflation, people in the lower income brackets have been affected less than the upper. In fact, while income was flat (slightly increasing) over 2000-2003 for the lower income brackets, expenses were also flat and actually decreased some. This is because they purchase from a different basket of goods, and because many of the products they buy may be easily substituted. Gas, however, is a larger portion of expenditures for the lower income earners than the upper income earners. It is also one of the expenditures that is not easily substituted, so gas price increases cut into disposable income.

Gas prices cut into the disposable of the lower 60% of earners, who have less disposable income to begin with. So you are affecting a lot more people, and people who are affected more, than most other price increases.

Everyone has a right to their own opinion. People can have all kind of opinions about facts and hypotheticals. But what the heck is this? An opinion about a situation that doesn't exist [at least not to a significant degree].

We have a NY Times opinion piece with no support for their opinion and no evidence that the situation that is the subject of their opinion even exists. Hacks.

In response to my recent post, Jonathan at Chicagoboyz raised concerns that a large number of voters, who influence spending decisions, would not be taxe