Blog Archives 070929 to 070802

Old pointless chatter instead of new pointless chatter.

 

070929 Davis, CA
Fall arrived suddenly last week. Mist in the evenings, cool windy days, and great clusters of crows in the trees lining the road I take to and from work. I like fall. I have mixed feelings about all the spiders that have moved indoors though. With the much cooler outside weather, my home has been invaded by spiders. I don't have the heat on, but the temperature inside does not get as cold as outside. Anyway, I don't much like sharing my home with a bunch of spiders, but I can't bring myself to kill them either.

Oh. I'm still consumed with work. This past week was pretty savage; I pulled my back on Monday, but I had long days all this week when I had to be crouched over the bench manipulating hundreds of samples. It was a bad lower-back strain; one of those where you are stuck using a bent coathanger in an attempt to put on your socks while standing bolt upright and other such silly maneuvers because any attempt to move normally is too painful to consider, much less attempt. Since I couldn't bend over, I ended up sitting on a little step-stool, so that my chin was a few inches higher than the bench-top when I was sitting up very straight. It amused my coworkers and was a literal pain-in-the-ass, but it let my back heal despite all the bench-work.

At Friday beers (more or less every Friday a handful of coworkers sit in the courtyard of our building and have a beer or two while socializing around 5:30 PM), somehow, the topic of lunch came up. Specifically, people were mentioning why they chose not to eat lunch in the lunch-room. We had a mixed group, some who ate at their desks and some who would eat in the courtyard. To our surprise, we all had the same reason for avoiding the lunchroom. I eat in the courtyard in all weather excepting a major storm, mostly because I spend too much time in doors so I enjoy the weather when I can, but also for the same reason as everyone else at beers; Bill.

Bill is a nice guy, but he has one of those voices that simply carries and can be heard even in a crowded room filled with people talking. The problem is what he talks about; he is an absolute fanatic in following and discussing the latest trends of the rich and stupid. He is the reason I know the current line-up of "Dancing With the Stars" (despite never having watched the show), he is the reason I'm up to date on the latest foolishness involving Britney Spears, Nicole Richie, and a host of other so-called celebrities.

It is just so pointlessly, relentlessly, inescapably trivial that you can just feel your brain cells commiting suicide to escape it as he natters on and on. He has a small following of about three other people who all enjoy discussing this stuff with him, but, from the brief survey of the beer crowd (nine people this past Friday), it appears that Bill's carrying voice and love of this entertainment "news" are the reasons the lunchroom is relatively unused.

As the weather cools down, I'll be bringing a jacket in to work, so I can continue eating lunch outside comfortably, but I have no plans to use the lunch room.

070915 Davis, CA
I've not typed up much here of late. For two reasons: 1) I've let work consume me and 2) I've been thinking. Let me explain.

1) Consumed by work:
I am currently the manager of one person, starting Monday I will be the manager of two people, and I will soon be the manager of three people, on two different projects. I've had both good and bad managers, so I'm trying to do this right. For me, it doesn't mean letting people flounder around and "find their own way" as a brand new employee, but it also doesn't mean a lot of meetings and "drive-by" management of someone else's time. It means doing the ground work so that the people I'm managing know what they are doing, where to find equipment and procedures, and who to ask when they run into trouble. If I've done it right, my people won't think I'm a great boss; they won't think of me very much at all. Instead they'll just think of how successful they've been at the start of their time at the company...

That ain't easy to set up. The new lab is not finished so there are some pretty big resources absent, some of the equipment is still arriving (I'm doing some of the ordering and some of the installing), I'm in the process of inventing some assays we are going to need, etc. It's a potentially very chaotic environment in which to start a job. Still, if I've done my homework, I can give clear direction, factual estimates of timelines, and clear presentation of which work-arounds will be needed for what timeline. You can see why doing this in addition to carrying my own load of bench-work will tend to consume my days pretty well. To create the extra time I need to have things worked out to my satisfaction, I've started coming in to work about two hours earlier than normal, while still leaving at my usual (kinda late) time. By the time I get home, I'm completely knackered (tired, for those of you who don't know British slang).

If I didn't do this extra gruntwork, my people would likely be less successful when starting out... No one would blame them or me and it'd likely just be chalked up to the disruptions of construction and new project startup pains. Still, I don't like that idea. I figure that if I can clear the way for my people to be successful during this potentially chaotic time, then they'll have more job satisfaction and will be starting off feeling directed and like they are moving forward. When the chaotic time ends, they'll be able to keep humming along and I won't have to do half so much gruntwork to clear the way.

Then again, I may simply be fooling myself I'm pretty consistently promising myself it'll get easier at some undefined future time and I'll cut back my hours at some undefined future time... I dunno.

2) I've been thinking. Specifically, I've been thinking about two unrelated topics that will take a lot of typing to bring up and discuss on this page; religion and the current age. By "religion", I mean I've been thinking about the differences between religion and religious philosophy. And by "the current age" I mean the modern age, not any specific decade, but the post-industrial revolution era. I'll tackle these in order.

As I've mentioned before, I've been going to the Davis Shambhala Meditation Center. It's open to whoever feels like showing up and, except for the first five minutes and the last five minutes, it's just sitting silently, bolt upright, mentally following your breathing, for about an hour. This group sitting practice is borrowed from Zen and it is a fairly simple technique to promote awareness, and calm and focus the mind, without any particular religious or philosophical bent. Still, it is bookended by Tibetan Buddhist mantras.

Thinking about religion, what would you think of someone going to your church who does not believe in the divinity of Jesus, in being "saved", or in any miracles, but thinks the 10 commandmants are good ideas and the teachings of Jesus are basically sound. Sure, this person may be a good person and a regular church attendee, but you certainly couldn't really call the person a "Christian" as most Christians interpret the term.

I'm in a similar situation with attending the Davis Shambhala Meditation Center; I don't have the slightest whiff of faith in the religious teachings, but I kinda like the practice of getting up early and focusing the mind. I could do that without leaving my bedroom, but I haven't been successful at doing that; going back to sleep or getting started on the day seem like better options if I stay at home.

This has me thinking about religion and the community of believers... It's a community of believers, not a community of believers- and- one- random- guy- who- just- sorta- shows- up. By the tennets of their faith, they can't ever consider not having a completely open door policy, but I can certainly question whether or not my social sense dictates that I choose not to show up. I'm still mulling that one over.

On to thoughts of the current age. The economist Mathus found that population was increasing geometrically while food resources were increasing linearly. This lead him to predict that famine was an inescapable fate, and lead many figures to call economics "the dismal science" due to this prediction. Well, Mathus's prediction did not come true, due largely to the industrialization of agriculture where tractors, refrigerator trucks, etc., allowed a massive increase in the efficiency of the production of foodstuffs. At the same time, the industrialized nations saw a falling birthrate, with most of the reduction in birthrate ocurring in the higher income brackets.

Still, this meant that we dodged the Malthusian bullet on food, by shifting to efficient but energy-expensive farming methods. Birthrates have remained relatively high amongst the poorest nations and have fallen primarily in those populations where the quality of life is high (which is maintained through all the energy-expensive trappings of modern life. In essence, Malthus wasn't really wrong; we just swapped our "doom" curve from food production to energy prodution. With the planet's population continuing increase, we continue to come closer to the time when the demands of the population will outstrip the ability of the planet to support that population.

The inovations of the modern age have been very successful at allowing massive populations without social breakdown or complete consumption of resources. The modern age really is a paradise; the global rates of poverty, disease, war, famine, unemployment, etc. are at all time lows (when taken as a global average and as percentages of the total population). So, I guess we can call it a golden age. The real question is "for how much longer?". We have increasing signs that the answer is "not that much longer".

Climatologists are pretty well convinced that the current global warming trend is largely due to human activity. (Yeah, some pundits claim it is still up for debate, but when 99 out of 100 experts agree, it's not really a "debate" unless you're calling it that just for political gain.) A majority also consider the "tipping point" theory to be a valid concern. A quick lay-person's version of the "tipping point" theory can be summed up like this: Consider a big pot full of tepid water sitting in a hot room. So long as there are a couple of chunks of ice sitting in that water, the water won't heat up that rapidly; the melting ice will suppress the heating effect to some degree. However, once the ice is all melted, the big pot full of water will pretty quickly go from tepid to hot. When thinking about the planet, we've got a couple of different big ice cubes; the at the North and South poles, Greenland, the thick layer of permafrost underlying the Siberian tundra. However, we are loosing our ice cubes pretty rapidly; the ice sheets and the North and South poles are receeding, the Greenlandic icesheet is dwinding and becoming riven with melt holes that no longer fill in over the winter and the Siberian permafrost has turned into millions of square miles of soggy dirt. The "tipping point" part of the theory comes in when the climatologists calculate in the fact that higher temperatures will lead to increasing air humidity; the theory says that at some point we get an effect like seen on Venus; more energy is trapped by the cloud cover than is reflected by it, leading to an irreversible superheating effect.

So, that brings me to minor measures like the Kyoto Accords. The Kyoto Accord signatories have agreed to slow the rate of acceleration of emissions thought to cause global warming. Think about that carefully for a moment; they aren't stopping polluting, they aren't even slowing down polluting; they are just agreeing to slow the rate of increase in polluting. Even that was too big an effort for the US, so the US has refused to sign on and is still accelerating in it's increase in polluting. Studies like the one by the Chicago School of Economics, indicating that it would be an economic benefit to take the efficiency-increasing steps mandated by the Kyoto Accord, simply don't hold the political pay-off required to make US politicians seriously consider backing the Kyoto Accord. This leaves the "tipping point" theorists concerned that we are unlikely to reach a political tipping point before we reach the climactic tipping point.

Whether or not you believe the majority of the climatologists that the current trends are largely human-activity caused, there are a number of factors that mean we may not be able to dodge the Mathusian bullet for much longer. One minor example is that, with increasing temperatures, all the horrid parasites and diseases once restricted to tropical regions are able to expand their territories. So, although things have improved enormously for humanity in the last century or two, in the last two decades, epidemics are up, famine is up, deaths due to extreme temperatures are up, flooding is up, landslide deaths are up, tsunami/hurricane/windstorm deaths are up, etc. All linked to global warming. This increase in deaths is not enough to significantly slow population increase, but enough to be a drain on nations' resources, thereby increasing the resource demand of the nations.

I'm sure you are all already aware of the trends in the energy sector, with petrolium prices set to continue increasing, and governments suddenly all a-quiver over "biofuels"... However, even ignoring the fact that the early biofuels attempts are putting fuel needs in competition with food needs (converting corn to ethanol, etc.), the overall picture for food is not promising. On the global warming front, Rush Limbaugh likes to claim that global warming is good for crops, but agricultural scientists disagree, citing studies that the warming-driven more severe weather patterns are negatively impacting our ability to increase crop yields.

On the population pressure front, articles in Food News (an Agriculture and Food Industry journal), point that prices of a number of staple crops are increasing, with wheat, corn, and sugar (from sugar beet and sugar cane) prices all up, with demand starting to outstrip supply. The preditions from industry experts is that these prices are unlikely to come down and the best we can hope for is that the rate of further price increase will be slow. For the poorest segments of society, this means that more of their income will be spent simply to afford the most basic of foods. I.e. this is one of the earliest signs that the golden age is ending and the poor are starting to bite down on the Malthusian bullet.

So, here's to the golden age. May it come to a close slowly and softly and may we enjoy it's fading light.

070902 Davis, CA
I went back to the Shambhala Meditation Center this morning (Sunday) and sat for about one hour. It's not easy; you are supposed to sit straight without any tension or movement and simply breathe while mentally following the breath in and out. Also, your mind should not wander. While one cannot help the random thoughts that flit in, one should not follow those thoughts but simply follow the flow of your breath with the majority of your attention... Think about it - it's deliberately boring and focused for a full hour. Not easy.

I had a nice chat afterwards with one of the regulars. I expressed my thought that the trappings were quite different from Zen, even though the group sitting was the same. He explained that the group sitting had been borrowed from Zen and the "trappings", the opening cant invoking the names of Tibetan spiritual leaders, the altar, etc., were from the Tibetan origin of the Shambala tradition. More or less, the Tibetan monks who helped to set up and guide the Shambala centers have a "whatever works" attitude without any particular attachment to their own religious traditions. So, when they found that the more heavily mystical elements of the Shambala tradition were prone to misinterpretation by Americans, they went and talked to some Zen masters who'd seemed to have had good success in the US (D.T.Suzuki, etc.), and they adopted a lot of the Zen practices for the US Shambala centers. For those people who are inspired and dedicated and want more, they have various study classes which will instruct people in the Shamabala Buddhist traditions, but for the most part they are happy to just have people show up, sit quietly, and think about what it means to be good people, without particular emphasis on boddhisatvas or whatever.

070901 Davis, CA
Hm. Today, I tried the Thai Aloe vera drink. So far, all of the Thai canned drinks that I picked up were overly sweet, somewhat viscous, and contained gloopy chunks of vegetable matter. It must be an acquired taste... that I have not acquired.

Oh, also I finally filled in a few more of the Polish entries. Scroll down to find the entries dated 070725, 070726, and 070728. To put it in the correct order, means that the reading will be a bit circular; reading 070725 (which starts at the bottom of 070726) down to it's end (at the top of 070724) then scrolling up to read 070726 down to the top of the entry you just read, etc. Oh well. At least I finally typed it up.

Hm. I don't know if I mentioned it here before, but I was reminded to mention it now since one of the recently-typed-up entries whined about how badly fubar'ed my vacation plans were by W. and P.'s sudden engagement right after I arrived in Poland - W. and P. called off the wedding and broke up (with much acrimony and family sturm-und-drang) about two days after I got back to the US. Special, eh?

070828 Davis, CA
Update: Linaria cymbalaria was the wrong "Pennywort"... That's the problem with common names. The one I should have looked up was Hydrocotyle or Centella javanica. According to the global gourmet site, Pennywort is reputed to be "good for the eyes". Also, the site mentions Pennywort drinks, specifically noting that "The canned version does not appeal much in colour or flavour". Ugh. I agree completely. That drink was a bit nasty.

070826 Davis, CA
Sunday was nice. I met with a few friends from work (Marco, Yan, and Qiming) and we went for Dim Sum in the morning. After that we went to an Asian supermarket in Sacramento, so that Qiming could show Yan (Marco the German's Chinese wife) a good place to buy groceries. So long as we were there, we all did a little shopping.

I did my usual course of action when at an ethnic supermarket; I bought things at random, choosing whatever I'd never tried before. Under the heading of drinks, I bought a Thai Aloe vera drink, a Thai pulpy coconut juice drink, two different Taiwanese pearl drinks (one based on soybean juice and the other based on milk-tea), a Chinese soymilk, a Malaysian sugar cane drink, a Taiwanese Basil Seed drink, a Thai Pennywort drink, and a Thai Pandan-flavored Soybean drink. I've had Pandan-flavored things before and this Thai grass imparts a nice mild flavor as well as a light green color to whatever it is augmenting. When I got home, I had to look up Pennywort to see if it is reputed to have any sort of medicinal properties or if it is just an unusual flavoring. According to "A Modern Herbal" by M. Grieve, Pennywort (Linaria cymbalaria aka Ivy-leaved toadflax aka Creeping Jenny) "has antiscorbutic properties, and has been eaten as a salad in southern Europe, being pungent and acrid like Cress." Huh. Should be an interesting flavor. The Basil seed drink should also be pretty interesting.

Anyway, after shopping, we went back to Marco and Yan's place and played a fairly neat card game; Meuterer (winner of Spiel des Jahres, 1997). Marco and Yan are fans of the German card and board games and were only able to bring a few of their collection, so they were quite happy to hear that I've heard of the Spiel des Jahres competition and have several of that class of games. Qiming and Yan both play Mah Jong, and Marco and I are both interested in learning, so we may start getting together for games.

070825 Davis, CA
I seem to be slowly checking off items from my long "to-do" list, just not the top priority items. For example, I still have not donated my old car to charity (I'll do this eventually), but I have finally measured and framed the paintings I'd brought back from China. The painters are each in the range of 25-50 USD (200-400 RMB, purchased while I was learning the art and how to bargain well, as practice before I moved on to my target art, the more expensive scrolls) and they are currently in six-dollar "Clips" frames from Ikea... This is not ideal, but at least the pictures are now protected, rather than loose, and in a format that can be hung up and displayed.

070812 Davis, CA
I went to see The Simpsons Movie last night... There were some good bits, but it was overall mediocre and kinda dragged in spots along with having a worse flaw: The TV show was funny because even when it was creating horrible situations, it seemed to have warmth for event the less redeemable characters. The movie replaced warmth with earnestness... and as a result seemed more cruel. I'd say to go see it only if you have the urge to sit in an air-conditioned, dark room at matinee prices.

070809 Davis, CA
Home computer or no home computer, I decided I wanted to enter at least some of my notes from Poland, so I brought home my work computer (a laptop) and poured myself a philosopher's glass (i.e. large) of Hess Small Block Series Syrah Rosé (2006) and started transcribing. You'll find the entries below, just scroll down till you spot the patch of polish flags marking the entries from Poland. Oh and remember that I've continued my habit of having the most recent entry at the top, so the first entry from Poland is the lowermost entry from Poland, at 070714.

Oh, I won't transcribe all the Polish entries in one go. Especially after leaving Bieszczardy, I had a lot of time to sit around and write so some of the entries are rather long. As I complete the entries, I'll point them out and provide a link down to them. Consider this just a taste.

070804 Davis, CA
I'm finally ready to start typing up some of the notes from Poland... The first thing I had to do was make sure that I could type up the notes - i.e. that I could spell everything properly. Polish uses a few letters that English doesn't use (like Ł, Ç and Ś) and if I was going to write something, I wanted to be sure to spell it properly, e.g. "Żubrówka" not "Zubrowka".

(Side note: Żubrówka is a vodka that has been flavored with "bison grass", a wild grass that the European bison like to eat. It gives the vodka a sort of herbal and cinnamon-y flavor that is quite nice.)

Since I code everything by hand, that meant looking up a whole lot of codes so that I'd know to type "Ż" whenever I wanted "Ż". I've memorized the special characters I've used regularly (e.g. å, æ, and ø for Danish), but hunting down the new ones is always a bit of a pain.

Anyway, that's nothing you all will care about. The bit you will care about is that there will finally be something interesting to read here, at least for a little while.

UPDATE: Er, it may take me a bit longer than originally planned. My home computer (which has been limping along and slowly dying ever since a voltage spike in China fried parts of the motherboard, including the USB ports and the power for the CPU fan) has finally dropped dead. Specifically, the bits of the motherboard responsible for talking to the hard drives no longer do so. Crud. I need to get a new computer ASAP and little will happen on the blog front until I have a functioning computer.

070802 Davis, CA
I'm back from Poland and still alive. I did a lot of writing and thinking while wandering around southern Poland and the thoughts will eventually be posted here, but I traveled on a Monday and returned to work Tuesday to 264 work emails, 2 project updates due, etc... I'm unlikely to even finish unpacking until sometime this weekend, much less find the time to post stuff. So, you'll hear about the trip eventually, but not now.

Page Last Modified: 2008 04 14, 16:50:44

 

 

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