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A multi-author blog with a range of opinions on news, culture, politics, beer, art, science, education, religion and life
by
Greg Krehbiel on
3 September 2010
Remember acid rain? It was just another in the long story of environmental scares that didn’t amount to that much.
The latest is that atmospheric CO2 will acidify the oceans. This one could be a little more serious.
One of the problems with making projections about the effects of atmospheric CO2 is figuring out how much the ocean can hold. Of course it’s not like the ocean has some big box to keep all this stuff. All other things being equal (and they never are), dissolved CO2 makes carbonic acid, and that can affect sea life. For example, see this. Ocean Acidification Hits Great Barrier Reef
It will be interesting to watch this. Sometimes people want us to think that ecosystems are in this incredibly delicate balance, and if we push it a little one way or the other, everything will fall apart. Some systems might be that way in some narrow respects, but many others have built in buffers. If you get more of one thing, whatever it is that eats that thing compensates.
The trouble is that we don’t know what that readjustment will do. It might be relatively benign, it might cause something really cool (like an increase in fisheries), or it might cause some seriously big problems.
Reporting on the environment is like a Jehovah’s Witness magazine, with a heavy emphasis on The End is Near! “CO2 plus water makes carbonic acid” is just basic chemistry, but nothing in real life is that simple. The ocean may respond to increased CO2 in a number of ways.
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2010-09-03 ::
Greg Krehbiel
by
Greg Krehbiel on
3 September 2010
I’ve been playing with one for work, and although it has a certain gee whiz appeal to it, I don’t like it all that much.
- The interface is not nearly as intuitive as they claim. For example, to move an icon on the desktop you have to touch it and hold it until everything starts wiggling, then you move it where you want, then touch the button at the bottom to get everything to stop wiggling. Of course everybody else in the world is born knowing that’s the right thing to do, but it seems goofy to me.
- Along those lines, I was in a spot where I had wi-fi access and wanted to save a web page to read later when I was out of range. The browser had very limited menu options and I couldn’t figure out how to do it.
- When you need to enter text, it’s a huge pain. Especially something like a password, that has upper- and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols. You have to switch back and forth between several different on-screen keypads.
- The screen is very impressive, with nice colors and pretty sharp detail, but it has a lot of glare that makes it impossible to read in the sunshine, and even difficult if there are bright lights overhead.
- When you’re done with the thing and you’ve turned off the fancy screen, you have this shiny black surface with finger prints all over it. It looks like some toddler has been handling it after eating a sloppy lunch in his high chair.
Aside from all that, as somebody who’s made his career in professional publishing, one thing I like about the iPad and other mobile devices is that they’re training people to pay for content.
There was an overwhelming sense that the web was free, and that everything on the web should be free. That made it hard for publishers to sell their content. (I’m not only talking about news. There are other reasons for the decline of news.)
I’m getting the sense now that the grownups have taken over and are insisting on payment for services. People are getting used to paying for a song or a magazine issue. That’s a good thing.
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2010-09-03 ::
Greg Krehbiel
by
Greg Krehbiel on
30 August 2010
I didn’t go. I was fishing. (And I wouldn’t have gone anyway.) I read a couple articles and heard a discussion about it on the radio this morning on “Grandy and Friends.”
Here’s what I’ve heard.
+ It was a pretty good turnout. Nobody ever knows precise numbers, but it was a large crowd. Likely more than 200,000, and maybe much larger.
+ It was more religious than political. It was mostly “we need a revival. Hurrah for faith, by which we mean a generally vague kind of Christian faith.” (Of course Beck, being a Mormon, isn’t going to push specifics too hard.)
+ The participants were main-stream America. The type you’d see at Walmart.
+ The crowd mostly packed out their own trash.
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2010-08-30 ::
Greg Krehbiel
by
Greg Krehbiel on
27 August 2010
… that there are certain things that just aren’t done?
It’s not a question of some unbreakable rule written on the roots of the gigantic ash Yggdrasil, or carved on the shell of the last turtle at the bottom of the everlasting pile of turtles.
It’s just that some things aren’t done. Get over it.
You don’t come to dinner in an undershirt. You don’t pee in the shower. You don’t criticize your boss. And men don’t take stuffed animals with them on business trips.
Or … well … maybe they do. But that’s because the conversation went like this.
Adorable kid: Daddy, fluffy bear would like to come with you to Chicago.
Dad: [About to say "I'm sorry cupcake, but stuffed animals don't go on business trips," he sees his wife's expression and reconsiders. He knows that she will say "why not? What's wrong with it? I think it's cute." He realizes that "because it's not appropriate" or "men don't do that sort of thing" is only going to make her mad at him, and he's hoping for a romantic night before he catches his plane.]
So he says “okay,” and stuffs the thing in his suitcase. And that sound you hear is the culture moving one step closer to oblivion.
[I'm not blaming this on women. Men are just as likely to be the "why not?" culprits. And teens are genetically predetermined to suffer from this. Which is why it's important for husband and wife both to get their stories straight and agree on such things.]
The fact is that cultures have rules. There are certain things that you just don’t do. There are age- and sex-appropriate activities. That’s just the way it is. And it’s a good thing.
A reductionist, whiney, “why not? What’s wrong with it?” approach to life threatens to turn everybody into an Owen Wilson or an Adam Sandler, and that’s a world I don’t want to live in.
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2010-08-27 ::
Greg Krehbiel
by
Greg Krehbiel on
27 August 2010
I really do. I despise it and I refuse to do it. (Unless, of course, I’m a guest in someone else’s house, in which case I’ll be polite and follow the household rules.)
I hate it because it’s a colossal waste of time.
I hate it because it’s a colossal waste of time that makes smug people feel even more smug.
I hate it because it’s a colossal waste of time that makes smug people who feel too smug already brainwash little children to be smug about it and to get in high moral dudgeon against people who refuse to engage in this colossal waste of time.
I hate it because it’s a colossal waste of time that makes smug people who feel too smug already get in high moral dudgeon against people who refuse to engage in this colossal waste of time and enact stupid laws to monitor and punish them.
Now, I should specify that by “recycling” I mean paper / plastic / glass consumer recycling. I hate that sort of recycling because none of those things do any harm. It’s stupid to waste all this time and effort to recycle them.
If the recycling police really wanted to make a difference, they’d focus on paint and used oil and batteries and old computer parts — stuff that actually does some harm and really ought to be recycled. If the city gave me a special trash can for that stuff, I would be very happy to comply.
Instead they want me to separate yard waste from regular trash, and all sorts of other inane things.
I’m using “inane” in the specific sense of “not anywhere near worth the effort.” After years and years of trying to get this silly thing to work, the economic and environmental return on effort / investment is absolutely trivial.
Recycling steams me up. Which is probably contributing to global warming! So there.
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2010-08-27 ::
Greg Krehbiel
by
Greg Krehbiel on
26 August 2010
I love it when I get emails like this.
Dear manager:
Good days. My friend, how are you? We are pleased to cooperation with you. we are special do the advertising equipment, like the Advertising vehicle, Advertising trailer, LED trivision, LED Display advertising car, solar power light box, mobile billboard, Admirrion, and so on.
The attachment photo as the little goods.
If you want to need the more detail messages, please contact our.
best regards.
Right. I’ll contact you immediately!
(I forgot to mention, the attached images were broken.)
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2010-08-26 ::
Greg Krehbiel
by
Greg Krehbiel on
25 August 2010
So my sake is finally in the fermenter. It takes a couple days of preparation to get there. I’ll explain.
The first thing you have to do is make koji, which is rice with a special mold growing on it. This mold converts starches in the rice into sugars for the yeast. The process is relatively simple.
In the recipe I used, you soak 0.9 lbs of rice for a couple hours, then steam it, then let it cool, then add 1/2 tsp of koji spores — which is stuff that sorta looks like flour. (In fact, some people recommend mixing it with some flour to make it easier to spread around on your steamed rice.)
You have to stir your koji every 12 hours, and you have to keep it damp. It takes about 2 days before it looks like this.
Then you steam 3.3 lbs of rice, cool it, and combine the koji, the steamed rice, 4 liters of water, and your yeast. I’m using a liquid sake yeast.
Some recipes call for citric acid, while others don’t. I haven’t decided on that one.
So here it all is, resting in my smallest carboy.
Supposedly it will be drinkable in 2 weeks. We’ll see.
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2010-08-25 ::
Greg Krehbiel
by
Greg Krehbiel on
25 August 2010
The Georgia Satellites set the bar pretty high.
I said honey I’ll live with you for the rest of my life
she said no huggin no kissin until you make me your wife
Little Big Town has lowered the bar considerably.
Mama warned me ’bout your games
She don’t like you anyways
No more calling me baby
No more loving like crazy
No more chicken and gravy
I ain’t gonna have your baby!
Til’ you take me down to the little white church
Unless they’re following the Mad Hatter’s usage, “no more loving like crazy” implies there’s been some. And apparently mama doesn’t approve of the match.
Of course you can’t diagnose a cultural trend on two songs, but does anybody in popular culture hold to “traditional values” on such things?
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2010-08-25 ::
Greg Krehbiel
by
Greg Krehbiel on
24 August 2010
The good news is that nice guys tend to accumulate power. The bad news is that power tends to make them not so nice any more.
The very traits that helped leaders accumulate control in the first place all but disappear once they rise to power. Instead of being polite, honest and outgoing, they become impulsive, reckless and rude.
Source: The Power Trip
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2010-08-24 ::
Greg Krehbiel
