)'(

The winding-down of summer and the beginning of the fall semester has brought the angst and pain of procrastination along with a blizzard of paperwork. I find myself making lists so that I can see what is yet to be done, what is done, and what is not going to be done. In that spirit, and in recognition of the fact that I am quite proficient at misplacing, burying, ignoring, filing away, and forgetting to look at these well-intentioned lists; I have decided to start a new one here. Essentially a bucket-list that, because it is here and public, will be harder to lose or ignore and can only be consciously deleted. (btw and not surprisingly, making a bucket-list is not on any of my lists of things that I should be doing.)

• Participate in Burning Man.

Synchronicity

Repetitive alliterative assonance and consonance:

Today, 8/8 (11), the Dow closed down 5.55% and the S&P 500 closed down 6.66%.

Oh, and onomatopoeia too: sick, sick, sick.

Dark verse from the stock market.

Now is it buy-buy-buy or bye-bye-bye?

Two Sides

Here is the text of a message I sent to my Congressman:

Please act to represent the collective best interests of all of your constituents, not just the dogmatic right. The issues are not black and white - just like equations and ledgers, they have two sides which need to act in unison if good solutions are to be realized. You and your Republican colleagues in the House are damaging the country now and into the future by rejecting far-reaching and balanced proposals such as the "gang-of-six" $4+trillion budget reform package.

Unlike the business and economic interests you purport to protect with a mindless no-tax pledge, you reject the best solutions that have been put forth in decades, seemingly to gain short-term short-sighted political advantage. Every business and every family I know, when faced with a financial challenge, does two things simultaneously:

• Cut all unnecessary expenses that will not harm the business' or family's future, and
• Increase revenue to the extent possible with increased sales and collections, and/or in the case of a family by taking on additional work - like a second or part-time job, or selling some assets.

No business or family would leave revenue out of the equation, especially revenue that has negligible if any downside. And in this case, loopholes that data has shown are not cost-effective in creating jobs, not boosting overall economic growth, nor meaningful investments in the future.

I worked in the House of Representatives many years ago, I understand the political pressures on Capitol Hill, I know how progress is made. I urge you to think independently, not just as one of the sheep in your Party. Do what is best collectively for all the people in your district and the US in the long run. Not what you [falsely] think will win the next news cycle or assuage the talking heads. Please stop ignoring history, arithmetic, facts, and common sense in order to push a sound-byte-based political marketing agenda.

Thank you for your consideration. Now please get to work.

Book Faces

I don't have a facebook account. It's not because their business model is all about mining your interaction data to better sell stuff, including the data, or because online activity can be risky, none of that. The reason I don't have an account is more philosophical: unlike the World-Wide Web, facebook is a closed community - you can't access the content without joining up. This is fair enough for personal pages, but my beef is about "public" pages. Of course the organizations that want the public to see their stuff have a marketing incentive to use facebook, not just because of its ease of user access, but also because it really is web 2.0 that lets their visitors provide content for their site and in turn they get great data to mine and an efficient low-cost ad channel that is targeted exactly at those most interested. It is a fantastic model, and thanks to Medcalf's law, as facebook grows it becomes polynomially more fantastic.

My issue is that facebook is to the web what AOL was to the Internet in the 1990's - a closed community. Just like the Internet, behind the gates of its community AOL had email, instant messaging, news groups, file transfer, a web browser, worldwide accessibility, and a lot of useful content. But you had to $ign up to get at it. I had an AOL account, I still do, but it's free now. I got it because I lived outside the US for several years during that time, traveled a lot, and had kinds in school. AOL provided reliable dial-up access almost everywhere: from home, all over the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, Australia, ... - very useful. And the kids could do research for school and get reliable information on just about everything, plus things like Cliffs Notes -perfect for those book reports on books that you didn't quite get all the way through. It was great, and a great value for the money, but then the power of the free and open World-Wide Web overwhelmed the proprietary subscription model, and we were all better off.

Now facebook would have the Web become http://www.facebook.com/theworldwideweb. In other words, if you want to find out what is on sale at Macy's for example, they want you to visit www.facebook.com/Macys rather than www.macys.com. It is obviously better for facebook if you do, and in some ways it is also better for Macy's and maybe even for you. Macy's in theory can get access to facebook's data that shows that you like other stores; and because of that, Macy's could be able to entice you with offers made with more knowledge about your preferences. A win-win-win.

But what if I don't want Macy's to know where else I shop. There's the rub, what is private and what is not. In fairness, much of the hoopla, consternation, and political histrionics about privacy on social networks is way overblown. As Scott McNealy is quoted to have said, "Get over it!" In legal terms, there is no 'reasonable expectation of privacy' on the Internet. Watch this video about the latest facebook "privacy" flap:

What does peeve me is when some more-or-less public organization or other posts a link (often a compacted one on twitter) out on the WWW that goes to a page inside the facebook moat. The poster probably never realizes that faceless surfers may miss their boat, because it works for them and all their "friends" (who are always logged in), so therefore it must work for everyone. Even worse and truly troubling is the prospect that with the kind of data available to facebook (and Google and others), they can tailor search results to your preferences and prejudices; thus inhibiting the free flow of facts and opinions that is the essence of the strength of the Internet itself, and the one best hope for creating an enlightened human race capable of learning the mysteries of universe rather than a tribal one that feeds on bias, bigotry, superstition, stereotypes, and ignorance.

Beginning anew (orbitally speaking)

Where are we as we begin the new year?

Even though it may not feel like it in the northern hemisphere, yesterday (January 3) the Earth passed through perihelion, the point in our elliptical orbit that is closest to the Sun (3.4% closer than at aphelion in July). Demonstrating again that on Earth the seasons have more to do with the tilt of our axis than with our distance from the Sun.

For those of us living near latitude 40° North (e.g., Quincy, CA and Philadelphia, PA), tomorrow (January 5) is the latest sunrise of the year. Yes, I know that the shortest daylight in the northern hemisphere was back in December on the solstice; nevertheless, the Sun's actual position in the sky is not the same as its average position which is what clocks measure. The difference from day to day is due to the fact that the Earth goes faster along its orbit when it is closer to the Sun and slower when it is farther away. Combining this effect with the tilt of the Earth's axis gives the equation of time which can be plotted as the analemma (the figure-8 thing on your globe).

Coincidentally and completely unrelated to the above facts or each other, both Venus and Mercury happen to be at their greatest elongation this week, Venus on Jan. 8 and Mercury on Jan. 9. "Greatest elongation" means that they appear in the sky as far from the Sun as is possible. Remember that both Mercury and Venus orbit closer to the Sun than Earth, so if you drew a triangle with the Earth, the Sun, and Venus (or Mercury) as vertices, then at greatest elongation the angle at Venus (or Mercury) will be a right angle, 90°. This week the angle between the Sun and Venus seen from Earth will be 47°, and 23° for Mercury.

If you look at Venus this week with good binoculars or a telescope, you would see it is half. Like the moon, Venus has phases. It is these phases of Venus that Galileo observed about four centuries ago, convincing him and others that the Earth and the planets orbited the Sun and that the Earth was not the center of the universe.

Have a happy new year!

Measure B

Quincy needs a new hospital, and we overwhelmingly voted to build one two years ago. Then some folks got a higher-than-expected tax bill and said, "No, wait, you mean we have to pay this much to build a hospital!? You mean the cost estimates were actually estimates, not a maximum!? You fooled me with your slick ad campaign; you lied."

So instead of enlisting to help find a better approach, as community leaders have done in the past when confronted with difficult situations, they decided to 'just say no' and to divide the community against itself with a so-called 'Cap the Tax' ballot measure. No solutions were brought forward, only an arbitrary, nice affordable-sounding, small rate cap; and with that they got enough signatures to force a vote. They said they were sure that it was enough to improve/maintain the hospital. Never mind that the rate cap in the ballot measure is smaller than most estimates done previously or since, and ignores the fact that bond buyers want security not risk.

Hindsight unquestionably shows that after the original vote, the hospital board and management interpreted the poll results as an overwhelming mandate to proceed without the bother of further involvement from the public. They did not involve or even communicate with the general community in planning and evaluating alternatives before proceeding. Even after the tax bills were sent, they did not come forward with a clear accounting of the alternatives explored and the reasons supporting the approach taken. Later, after the ballot initiative was underway, when a better potential lending source was identified that had not been available originally, they appeared to assume a defensive stance rather than one open to community input and discussion. However, that is water under the bridge.

Capping the tax sounds appealing, especially to those struggling in these tough financial times. Uncertainty is after all, uncertain; certainty is more comfortable, more certain. Furthermore, everyone agrees that lower taxes are better than higher taxes. The proponents however want to have their cake and eat it too; they want a better hospital but don't want to pay for it. They are riding the prevalent anti-government anti-any-tax sentiments. Sadly they don't seem to realize that in this situation, they [we] are the government. They seem determined to shoot themselves in the foot, cut off their noses to spite their faces, or somehow punish the community at large to vent their anger and distrust. They say that they want to start the process over, but unlike some computer applications, there is no Undo-button in the real world. The low-cost loan [stimulus] money identified will not be available a couple years from now, and the current lower-than-usual construction costs will not remain when the economy revives.

Unfortunately, if passed, the 'Cap the Tax' measure would make it impossible to build the needed hospital, and it would eliminate any hope to qualify for the low-cost (or any other) funds. The monies from construction bonds cannot be used for remodeling or repair or any other purposes. The existing hospital cannot accommodate modern medical equipment and procedures, and is operating under a waiver of current building standards. As a result, new doctors cannot be recruited. Without a new hospital on the horizon, local health care will rapidly spiral downward until there is essentially none. Every emergency will become an 80-mile $15,000 helicopter ride. Babies won't be born here, except by accident. Those who would have moved here to retire will not. New business will not want to locate here, and those that are here will find their benefit costs climbing too high to survive. More young families will leave because, besides no jobs, there will be no doctors. Unless we decide that the roads and bridges that we currently have are good enough and will no longer need repairs or replacement, tourists will probably still come, but heaven help them if they need medical care.

The alternative is to invest in the future:

Save our Hospital.

Vote NO on measure B.

Read more:

• Hospital Board President's article, August 4
• Feather River Bulletin editorial, July 28
• Public Forum, July 29
• Chico State Economic Study, Feb. 2010

Fratricide

Here we go again: The Kyrgyz are killing the Uzbeks. (and/or vice versa this time or next)

Get over it, grow up, use your brain, open your eyes, talk; you are the same. You are all descended from the same set of nomads, invaders, traders, missionaries, colonialists, etc. One group does not have feathers and fingers and the other fins and fangs; you are literally brothers.

You are not the first and sadly probably not the last: Hutu - Tutsi, Serb - Croat, Israeli - Palestinian, ...; all brothers, all identical.

The other day in the UK, the Bloody Sunday Inquiry report findings were presented to Parliament by the Prime Minister. In my opinion it was an extraordinary speech. (Admittedly it may be somewhat less extraordinary in the UK Parliament than a similar one would be in the US Congress, but I digress.) Besides the fact that it was clear, succinct, unequivocal, and uninterrupted, I thought that one of the more interesting aspects was the perspective. I was an adult on Jan 30, 1972, but most who may read this were not. David Cameron was five, Bono was eleven (the U2 was a spy-plane); to them this happened on the ragged edge of history. Perspective shows clearly how stupid it was.

Watch the video.

Overall these conflicts are not not right against wrong, only wrong and wrong. They are about mine vs. yours, not about ours and ours. My version of god, not yours. Whatever. Intellectually we know that anything that is not win-win is in fact lose-lose. It is not a zero-sum game. We get so blinded by prejudice, ignorance, pride, hate, faith or history that we cannot see how our victory could be our loss. Nothing is really black-and-white. Be careful what you wish for. Imagine walking in your opponent's shoes. And always make it a rule never to say always or never!

U2 - Bloody Sunday.

I hope that the message is not lost in the din of other news. Doing wrong in the name of right is never right, it is always wrong.