Deep Agriculture: Michael Pollan at Long Now

Our entire agricultural system is built on cheap oil. As a consequence, our agriculture sector actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And in the mean time, it’s creating monocultures that are vulnerable to national security threats, are now vulnerable to sky-high food prices or crashes in food prices, huge swings in commodity prices, and are partly responsible for the explosion in our healthcare costs because they’re contributing to type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease, obesity, all the things that are driving our huge explosion in healthcare costs.

—President Barack Obama, as quoted by Michael Pollan during his Long Now talk.

Think about this: It takes up to 55 calories of fossil fuel energy to produce 1 calorie of food energy.

Go watch.

How many usability engineers does it take to buy a light bulb?

For those of you who just want the answer, here you go:

  • Range hood bulb: 10 Watt G4
  • In-oven bulb: 50 Watt 130 Volt GY6.35

Head to your corner store and pick one up. Now, on with the story.
Continue reading “How many usability engineers does it take to buy a light bulb?”

One Less Torture Advocate

I can’t really say this any better than The New Republic already did. Seems right-wing radio shock jock Eric Muller lasted all of seven seconds of waterboarding before he gave up and admitted it was torture:

Turns out the stunt wasn’t so funny. Witnesses said Muller thrashed on the table, and even instantly threw the toy cow he was holding as his emergency tool to signify when he wanted the experiment to stop. He only lasted 6 or 7 seconds.

“It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that’s no joke,” Mancow said, likening it to a time when he nearly drowned as a child. “It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back…It was instantaneous…and I don’t want to say this: absolutely torture.”

Verizon willing to let man die over unpaid $20 phone bill

Check out this piece in the Dover, Ohio Times-Reporter. Seem Verizon was wouldn’t help the cops until they paid the victim’s overdue phone bill:

Williams said he attempted to use the man’s cell phone signal to locate him, but the man was behind on his phone bill and the Verizon operator refused to connect the signal unless the sheriff’s department agreed to pay the overdue bill. After some disagreement, Williams agreed to pay $20 on the phone bill in order to find the man. But deputies discovered the man just as Williams was preparing to make arrangements for the payment.
…
“I was more concerned for the person’s life,” Williams said. “It would have been nice if Verizon would have turned on his phone for five or 10 minutes, just long enough to try and find the guy. But they would only turn it on if we agreed to pay $20 of the unpaid bill. Ridiculous.”

Credit card companies whine to press

Yesterday’s New York Times covers changes to credit cards. They spoke with David Robertson, publisher of the Nilson Report, which tracks the credit card business.

Robertston lays it on thick:

People who routinely pay off their credit card balances have been enjoying the equivalent of a free ride, he said, because many have not had to pay an annual fee even as they collect points for air travel and other perks.

He’s claiming I’m getting a free ride. As if the poor credit card companies somehow aren’t making money off me because I pay my bills in full. This is, of course, complete crap.

Suppose I spend $10,000 and my average transaction is $25. That means I’ve made 400 transactions. First, American Express makes 25-50 cents per transaction. Next, AmEx’s discount rate is just above 2.5%. Adding it up, they have $256 from their discount rate + $175 in transaction fees. So AmEx has made $431. That’s not bad for sitting on their butts.

The Times ends by talking to a more sensible voice:

Austan Goolsbee, an economic adviser to President Obama, said that while the credit card industry had the right to make a reasonable profit as long as its contracts were in plain language and rule-breakers were held accountable, its current practices were akin to “a series of carjackings.”

“The card industry is giving the argument that if you didn’t want to be carjacked, why weren’t you locking your doors or taking a different road?” Mr. Goolsbee said.

Caltrain bike car update

Back on February 5, Caltrain agreed to expand the capacity of all their bike cars. Older, Gallery cars would go from 32 spots to 40. Newer, Bombardier cars would go from 16 to 24 spots.

Turnaround was quick, with the first expanded car spotted in the wild just 13 days later:

NB275 one old gallery – with two additional racks! Capacity for 40 bikes!

While Caltrain hoped to complete the expansion by the end of last month, we’re not quite there yet. Many tweets had been exchanged about expanded Gallery-style cars, but the newer, smoother Bombardier cars were holding steady at 16 spots a piece.

I checked with Caltrain’s Special Assistant to the CEO, Mark Simon. Here are the current capacities:

no bike spots classic expanded percent done
Gallery 0 7 20 74%
Bombardier 2 54 01 0%14%
Total 2 11 21 62%

Simon told me the first expanded Bombardier cab car would hit the rails next week.

But: just before 6 PM today, a very excited tweet came across the bikecar feed:

79 1 new (24!!!!) T17:59

If that tweet is accurate, the shop got it out ahead of schedule. Sweet.

Weird jobspam of the day

Why am I getting recruited to be a physical therapist?

Return-Path:
From: [email protected]
Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 12:32:21 -0400
Subject: Nationwide Physical Therapist Search
Reply-To: [email protected]
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Sender: [email protected]

Hello!

My name is Tonya Greene and I am currently conducting a nationwide search for Physical Therapist. RCI is not a travel staffing agency. We have been retained by this healthcare facility to assist them in locating qualified candidates for their permanent job opportunities.

I have current open PT positionis the below areas:

Easton MD
Toledo, OH, Charleston, SC
Park Falls WI
Winona MN
Renselleur, IN
Kingsville, TX
San Antonio, TX
Savannah, GA
Bronxville, NY

I found your contact information and hoped we could set up an appointment to speak about your future career plans.

Please contact me right away by calling me at 404-963-1703 or reply to this email with your resume and the best time for me to call you!

I look forward to hearing from you!
Sincerely,

Tonya Greene
RCI Recruitment Solutions

550 Heritage Drive Suite 200
Jupiter, Florida 33458
Main 404-963-1703
eFax 866-723-1164