speling is hard!

Why did no one ever menshin that I'd mis-spelled "harassed" in the tag-line of mah blog? How embarrasing.

Sea Level Rise Explorer

Now, through the wonders of the internet, you can explore what the world will look like when the ice caps begin to melt and sea levels rise 20+ feet. This mash-up of NASA satellite info and google maps can help you identify just how screwed your favorite beach spot will be. It also has a neat tutorial at the bottom that walks you through where the extra ocean is coming from.

Sadly, my neighborhood in San Francisco looks pretty screwed, as it's squarely in the red. I guess that shouldn't be much of a surprise, given that it's all landfill/liquefaction zone. =P

International Slave Trade: some investigative journalism

So good news! The international slave trade is alive and kicking. Apparently there are more slaves globally now than there have ever been at any point in human history: 27 million. Hard to believe, but as Hillary Clinton says, this is "the dark underbelly of globalization."

Author E. Benjamin Skinner recently wrote a book on the subject after going undercover around the world to learn more about how it all works. It comes in many forms (debt bondage, forced domestic servitude, forced prostitution), and is rampant throughout Asian, Africa, Europe, the Americas... it's everywhere.

There's an interview with the author on salon.com, which is a short 2-page read, and may be more than you can stomach. But in my mind, knowing about the problem and spreading awareness are probably the least (and maybe even the most) I can do, and I'd ask that you do the same. Who knows, you may be in a position at some point to help someone who's tied to slavery...

Northwest and Delta to merge

So in case you hadn't heard, Northwest and Delta are planning to merge to create the largest airline in the world. That's great news for people who care, among whom I am not. What this does for me is merge two useless frequent flyer programs that I never use into a single useless frequent flyer program that I never use. But that new program will have 50k miles or so sitting in it, so maybe I'll get around to using it sometime.

What would be a useful merger to me would be United and American. Then I can get to Europe, Asia, AND South America all on the same airline. THAT would be helpful. So UA, AA, get on it!!!

But I also hear some interesting analysis on Friday on NPR's Marketplace that suggested that the airline business could really only be profitable under monopolies. Which I would believe, given the massive scale of costs and logistics involved (a la US Postal Service and others). But of course that creates problems of price, since classical economic theory holds that perfect competition is the ideal way for prices to equilibrate at the point of incremental cost. Which is basically just the idea that competitors will each lower their prices to beat each other until their prices are basically matching their costs (assuming that costs include the minimum mark-up to remain profitable).

However, in a monopoly, the prices aren't necessarily that much higher than in perfect competition. They can be, but they don't *have* to be. There's a lot of economic theory involved, but the basics are that sometimes a monopoly is the best way to deliver a good or service. Again, think of USPS... do you really want to have multiple post offices to choose from, just to shave 3 cents off of your stamp cost? If there were competing post offices, prices would be driven down to the point that service would be cut off in rural and hard-to-reach areas, which would disenfranchise significant sections of the population. Generally, in questions of infrastructure, it's better to have a monopoly delivering the service (USPS, Amtrak, gov't providing roads/highways, etc), so that minimum service levels are maintained for everyone.

OK, so I didn't really proof or review what I just wrote, but I think in summary I've convinced myself that airlines are infrastructure and that we'd be better as a society to have air travel provided by monopolies, thus ensuring maximum service levels for all Americans, but at slightly higher prices. Hmmmm. Yeah, that sounds right to me.

I'm probly the only one who'll think this is funny..

Cat Massages Dog

I think I've been entirely too lowbrow with my posts overall... or maybe just midbrow... or perhaps sidebrow since a lot of them have been about my life. I should really post more crap from my personal philosophies... such as Graeme's Theory on Social Entropy, whereby social conflict resolves itself to the lowest energy state for the system... or my thoughts on sustainability and the ethics of permaculture... and countless other observations and formulations I've developed over the years. All of which I will get to eventually.

For now, however, enjoy this video of a cat massaging a dog.

Fucking BALLS!

That seems to be my new phrase. When something goes wrong I shout, "Fucking BALLS!!!" The lesser version is just, "BALLS!!!", or "oh, balls."

I have no idea where it came from. But I wanted to share that as part of an effort to chart my wordogenesis, since I seem to create words and phrases from thin air, and propagate them to others. Though "I'm so tired I'm going to sleep like a dead baby tonight" hasn't caught on just yet... can't imagine why.

How to Say You're Sorry: A Primer

I found this on salon.com a month or so ago... it's an amusing essay that will help you understand how to say you're sorry.

The opening goes like this....

"Just say you're sorry. Never say you're sorry "if." Say you're sorry.

"I'm sorry I was rude" is good.

"I'm sorry if I was rude" is not. It weasels. It implies that maybe you weren't rude. It implies that the person being apologized to has a twisted little worldview if they think "Oh, shut up, frog-lips" is rude."

.... and it goes on from there. But it's some good stuff. So enjoy!

Goods 4 Girls

I want to share a charity with you that my friend Sue is a big fan of. Goods 4 Girls is an organization that distributes cloth menstrual pads to girls in Africa. Now, I'm no menstruation expert (clearly, on so many levels)... and this may seem like a silly or obscure cause to champion... but once girls start menstruating it can be very difficult for them to continue going to school, as many of them have no access to pads of their own.

So anyways... check out the link and read up about what they do... and see what you can do to help. This is a really simple effort that can make a monumental difference in a young girl's life...!

Meta Postage

I've got a slew of posts I've been meaning to make.

Some are cross-posts of Youtube videos... Youtube supposedly allows you to easily post to your blog from their site, but I've tried several times now and it's completely failed... so maybe at some point I'll figure out why and do something about it.

Some are political commentary on the whole primary season. I've been remarkably silent about all of that here on my blog, which is incredibly unlike me. I suppose in general I feel as if the primary season has more than enough coverage and commentary as it is... but I would like to go on record with some of my opinions, esp related to McCain (who my roommate [insanely] is thinking of voting for) and the whole Clinton-Obama in-fighting (which is just stupid and counter-productive).

Some are about my love life... about The Fucker and about Daywalker and about the various other nutjobs I've been subjected to as of late. Those I'll definitely get to soon to spare my sanity and get that shit off my chest.

The rest are random... my druid hit 70 (Elianthor on Thrall), it's Kelly's 30th this wknd, my family's got both awesome and super-shitty news, school's been going well/weird... etc.

So... there may be a blitzkrieg of posts coming... or there may not. I'm going to try to start slamming these things in to get them out of my head, but my schedule's so packed for the next week that by the time I have time to write I may have lost the bug to do so. =P

Au revoir, Jean-Pierre.

I shaved off my facial hair last night. It was a really weird experience, and surprised me at how long it took, given how little I had to shave. And now my face looks all naked and exposed, and I look like I'm 19. [Well ok, I probably don't look that young, but I definitely look younger than I did with the hair.] I also seem to have lost the pseudo-jawline my facial hair gave me... I guess that means I have to actually start working out to get a real one. Boooo.

In the last few hrs I've realized how many tics I'd developed around the hair... I'd taken to tugging on the soul patch or the beard while thinking, for example. And thoughtfully stroking the beard to look like I was paying attention during conversation. And twirling the ends of the stache while laughing maniacally after tying a helpless maiden to train tracks.

Anyways, it's all gone now. I'm gonna ride out the summer and see how I feel, and probably bring it back randomly at some point. Good times.

Hastert's seat goes to Dems!

Woohoo! Go Batavia!!!! Dennis Hastert's seat has just been lost in a special election to a Democrat.

Why is this significant? First, the district in question is just west of my native Wheaton, IL. Second, it has been a historically Republican district, typically skewing 60-70% GOP during elections. But most interestingly is the history of Hastert himself. Hastert was Speaker of the House just before Pelosi, and was a major Bush yes-man. He ended up losing his seat of 20+ years because of the scandal surrounding Florida Rep Mark Foley and the House Pages Foley was trying to seduce. Foley was basically a big ol' pedophile, and Hastert protected him from investigation for years.

So now Hastert's GOP seat has been lost to the Dems. Everyone was saying that this election would be a harbinger for November... if that's true, then we may be in for a landslide of Dems, and a GOP in total disarray. Yay!!! [And Big A, that's a good thing... the GOP needs to reboot and drop all the Bush shit, and get back to its core values, dammit! And those values aren't the crazy right wing shit we've seen since Reagan! But that's not news... most true Repubs feel that way, from the conversations I've had.]

Housing Bubble Persists!

"Given the outsize imbalance between supply and demand for new homes, housing prices may need to fall an additional 20 percent to clear the market. "
-- Steve S. Roach for the NY Times, Head of Morgan Stanley Asia

My friend Matt just sent that to me. I'm not sure to which market specifically Mr. Roach is referring, but I know that SF prices have historically been inflated, and they've barely declined in recent years. So I'm almost 100% positive that his statements apply to SF. So.... no house for me... not yet, anyways. Not even the new LEED certified condos at Arterra here in soma. :(

RIP Gary Gygax

Gary Gygax, one of the co-creators of Dungeons & Dragons, died on Tuesday, March 4. He, along with Dave Arneson, is considered one of the fathers of role playing. And between tabletop RPGs, video games, card games, MMORPGs, etc etc etc... that's one hell of a legacy. Slashdot has a post about him, as does Wired, and a quick google search will pull up hundreds more.

I like Wired's post: "Gary Gygax, co-creator of the incredibly influential Dungeons & Dragons role-playing games, died yesterday at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin at age 69.

Almost everyone who's ever played an RPG, be it with dice, a mouse, or a controller, owes a debt of gratitude to Gygax, who helped create many of the conventions we now take for granted, such as leveling up, stat-boosting gear, and, of course, the Dungeon Master.

Gygax created the original D&D in 1974 with Dave Arneson as a product of Tactical Studies Rules, which later became TSR. The popularity of the pen-and-paper version of D&D has waxed and waned over the years, but its status as a pillar of the gaming community has never wavered.

Honor Gygax's memory however you feel is appropriate. Roll for initiative. Attack the darkness. As for me, I'll be watching some episodes of the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon series. Yes, of course it's crap, but I love it, just the same. I never could decide which I wanted more, though, Sheila's cloak or Hank's bow."

I'm also a big fan of the cartoon at the top, which was posted on Penny Arcade. I can't find a permalink to it, but for now it can be found on Penny Arcade's front page.

Yale refuses to return Maccu Picchu artifacts to Peru

My friend Emilie forwarded me this opinion piece from the NY Times. In it, the former first lady of Peru argues that ~350 artifacts recovered from Maccu Picchu in the early 20th century and that are currently housed at Yale should be returned to Peru. Basically, the artifacts were only supposed to be on a 1.5 year loan, but here we are over a half-century later and Yale doesn't want to return them. It's interesting the level of negotiations involved, too... US Senators, Peruvian ambassadors, and even the National Geographic Society (which sides with Peru... yay!).

This sort of thing is a common occurrence... colonialism saw the extraction from the developing world of not just material wealth but cultural wealth as well. And usually the rich countries who now house those artifacts don't want to return them. I believe there's a long-standing row between Egypt and England over this very topic.

As for as I'm concerned, why not scan the originals, make replicas for your exhibits, and then send the originals back home? That way you don't disrupt your current exhibits, and the indigenous folks get some of the artifacts of their heritage back. That seems fair to me. Hell, why not create an active research partnership between (in this case) Yale and a university in Peru (Cuzco or Lima), and conduct some joint studies? That way everyone has access to the artifacts, and Yale can ensure that they're properly cared for, and local archaeologists can get facetime with bigwigs at an Ivy League school. Seems like a fair solution to me.