Charles Pillsbury III

Scientific American has a fascinating little piece on what it would take to “Be Batman”… though they seem to fail to take into account that Batman is a total freaking bada$$… it’s like arguing that a chubby pitcher can’t hit home runs, even if his name sounds like it would make a tasty candy bar.

How long would Bruce Wayne have to train to become Batman?
In some of the timelines you see in the comics, the backstory is he goes away for five years—some it’s three to five years, or eight years, or 12 years. In terms of the physical changes (strength and conditioning), that’s happening fairly quickly. We’re talking three to five years. In terms of the physical skills to be able to defend himself against all these opponents all the time, I would benchmark that at 10 to 12 years. Probably the most reality-based representation of Batman and his training was in Batman Begins.

[From Dark Knight Shift: Why Batman Could Exist--But Not for Long: Scientific American]

I found this video of a town in the hills of Japan very “sci-fi”… I can almost see a dystopian future where we’ve hosed society and have to recycle everything, making use of the limited resources we have left. Wait, did I just describe waterworld?

The Mayor of Kamikatsu, a small community in the hills of eastern Japan, has urged politicians around the world to follow his lead and make their towns “Zero Waste”.

He told BBC News that all communities could learn from Kamikatsu, where residents have to compost all their food waste and sort other rubbish into 34 different categories.

Residents say the scheme has prompted them to cut down on waste generally and food waste in particular.

If the policy spread, it would reduce the amount of food waste, and so take some of the pressure off high food prices.

[From BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Living in a world without waste]

Stossel again. This time on the current economic woes (not a depression, and not quite yet a recession… though approaching bear market).

… A recession is defined as two quarters of negative economic growth. We haven’t even had one quarter of negative growth.

Yes, growth has slowed, and many people are suffering because of falling home prices and higher food and energy prices. These are real problems, but watching TV, you’d think we were in a recession so severe it must be compared to the Great Depression.

…

So let me stop here to repeat that. We are not in a depression. We are not even in recession. Get a grip, guys. We ought to point out that whatever today’s problems bring, we are far away from reliving the Depression.

As Amity Shlaes points out in her book “The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression” — which has just been released in paperback — by November 1933, unemployment had skyrocketed to over 23 percent. Think about that: 5 percent unemployment today vs. 23 percent during the Depression. Amidst today’s talk of stock market “collapse,” remember that during the Depression, the Dow plummeted to 90, a loss of nearly 75 percent of its previous value. “This downturn is to the Depression as a drizzle is to Katrina,” says Shlaes, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “In the Depression, America confronted deflation. There literally wasn’t enough money. People made their own scrip, Monopoly money, to pay their bills. In Utah, they made a currency called the Vallar. Today, we are in an inflation. If this period is like anything, it is like the 1970s.”

…

I’m also not saying there are no economic problems today. But today’s problems are no excuse for reporters to make glib comparisons to the Great Depression.

[From RealClearPolitics - Articles - Dire News from My Colleagues]

I’ve been trying to get my son to read War of the Worlds (stick with me here this may make some sense later), because I want to follow it up with the original radio drama and the fantastic look at the cultural phenomenon associated with it as analyzed and discussed by Jad and Robert of RadioLab (one of the BEST audio shows out there… go subscribe to the podcast now). The RadioLab discussion includes a talk on how you get much the same sort of gloom and doom hype from your local evening news these days, and how much of the practice can be tracked to how effective the War of the Worlds broadcast was because… well… hype “sells.” This is why you hear the teasers “what’s in your drinking water that could KILL you! tonight at 11″, and probably a good part of why the perception one could get from the major media is that people are starving in the streets for lack of employment/food/money, when the reality is that times are tougher, budgets are tighter, and still we (even the US Poor) still live better than 80% of the world’s population (and more than our grand-parents had during the depression).

I am, by nature, skeptical of anything somebody in the media, politics, corporate culture… and almost anything that could be construed as “leadership” position might say.

A) I love that this site is called hillbillyhousewife.com

B) This isn’t the most vegetarian friendly emergency menu, but

C) it’s a good starting point to look at what could be done on a smaller budget

I’ve seen various places around the web claim that in an emergency you can feed your family for only $10 or $20 a week. While I appreciate their intentions, I have noticed that they all assume you have certain supplies already on hand. In my experience this isn’t always the case. Forty-five dollars will seem outrageously abundant to some, while it will seem miniscule to others. It is the smallest amount I was able to come up with that will provide enough supplies to an empty kitchen to feed an entire family for a week. The servings are ample and a few adjustments allow you to increase the quantities from 4 servings to 6. Newly added nutritional information makes it clear that except for sodium, these recipes are nutritious and healthy. They are low in fat and cholesterol, high in protein and rich in fiber. To reduce the sodium you can use half as much salt and bouillon as called for in the recipes, and purchase store-brand reduced sodium canned vegetables instead of the regular variety.

[From Low Cost Emergency Menu]

This is a quote from the comments on the ACLU site, though I’m pulling it from Chad Perrin’s site so I’m quoting a quote now. Either way, some good stuff on the SC’s vote on the 2nd amendment.

A “collective” is a group of individuals. How can a collective have a right that the individuals in that collective don’t have? Which of the members of the group gets to exercise that right on behalf of the others? Who decides who that person is?

What about the First Amendment? It talks about freedom of the press, and “the right of the people peaceably to assemble.” That’s the same “the people” as in the Second Amendment, which you’ve asserted is a “collective right.” Maybe we should limit freedom of speech to registered press members (who will, of course, be required to store their typewriters in a disassembled and locked state, so that they are not able to exercise that collective right at a moment’s notice). We’ll take their fingerprints, run a background check, and make them demonstrate competency at composing headlines. Of course, no press will be allowed to operate within Washington D.C. — to keep illegal typewriters off the streets.

[From Chad Perrin: SOB » ACLU advocates banning "assault typewriters"]

I make very little bones about the fact that I’m an unabashed Pixar fan-boy. They’ve made consistently great movies (some greater than others), and even with all their technical innovation, it’s the story telling that makes them great. Animation World has a fascinating piece on how they simulated “real” photography for the making of Wall-E.

If you challenge yourself with each artistic endeavor, always aiming beyond your comfort zone, you invariably become a student of your own work, and the biggest thing I learned on WALL•E was that all the major elements that produce a film… play a vital and unique role in telling the story. If you choose to remove one of them (in our case, the dialogue, which was drastically reduced), the other remaining elements must fill the void that is left behind. The job of communicating information suddenly becomes the imperative in every instance.

– Andrew Stanton

[From Animation World Magazine]

Head over to Boing Boing and check out the top 10 TED talks. I’m not saying I agree with all of them, but the TED talks tend to be thoughtful and interesting.

top 10 most-viewed TED Talk videos from June 2006 to May 2008

[From Top 10 TED Talks - Boing Boing]

It has been a long short week at work. Now it’s 11:30pm and I’m barely awake. The big kid has conked out watching Animal Planet. The baby girl is now asleep in her bed because Sam wanted me to bring him in to sleep with Mom “because she’s been so sweet to me today.” Somebody is going to watch the kids for the day of the 4th, while I (and maybe Alicia) go paint and such in our old house to get it ready to sell. I’ll have to write something more interesting/amusing/worthwhile at some point… but right now I’m typing with my eyes closed… just to “rest” them.

I just “discovered” this little financial hack way to get gas for basically 10% or so off, here in Georgia anyway. The regional grocery store Kroger is running a promotional through July which gives you a 10% bonus when you buy a large gift card (minimum is $300). So what I did was buy a $330 gift card for $300. Then, using their little rewards card thing I bought $100+ worth of groceries which gets me a fill-up with 10 cents off per gallon. And since I can use the gift card at the gas pump…

$3.95 gas - $0.10 discount for buying groceries from them = $3.85 - 10% (from the bonus money added to the gift card = $3.47 a gallon for gas (wait, I may have mis-calculated that… it could be $3.50 a gallon or so, I’d have to do more complex than Saturday afternoon warrants :D… either way big savings).

I’m sure I’ll be stocking up on gift cards from Kroger before that promotion ends, it applies to $300 ($330), $600 ($660), and $1200 ($1320) gift cards.

BBC has a few interesting editorial pieces like this, worth reading and thinking about (and I’m going on the assumption that you all will take whatever you read with a grain of salt and reason).

The world’s poorest of the poor live in the toughest areas of the planet - the drylands.
These areas all have key factors in common: water is scarce, and rainfall is unpredictable - or it rains only during a very short period every year.
Drylands cover more than 40% of the Earth’s surface and are home to more than two billion people.
These areas are also home to a disproportionate number of people without secure access to food.

[From BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | A way of life is feeling the heat]

This is something to think about when putting forth nuclear power as a valid solution to energy problems, we’ll need technical people involved in the process which aren’t there now.

A new generation of nuclear power stations has been given the go-ahead by the government - but where are the scientists and engineers to build and run them?
Inside Sellafield nuclear power plant, past the police checks and the barbed wire fences, 26-year-old Gemma Johnson is hard at work in one of the plant’s high-security laboratories.
Surrounded by test tubes and bubbling liquids, she is carrying out research aimed at improving the way radioactive waste is treated.
Gemma is one of the much-needed qualified scientists joining the nuclear industry after years of declining recruit numbers.

[From BBC NEWS | UK | Nuclear power seeks young talent]

I’m reading a book called Kluge which addresses this in depth… basically the brain doesn’t work as well as we all like to think it does.

If someone was killed in front of you would you remember what happened? Many experts are challenging the view that eyewitnesses recounting what they saw is the best way of tapping their memory. Some think brain scans could be the way forward.
Think of a journey you made yesterday. I’m sure you remember it.
So can you remember whom you sat next to? Can you remember what the weather was like? Who was in front of you in the petrol queue? Was it a man or a woman?

Naturally, most of the time we don’t remember these details. But what if someone got knifed in the petrol station? Then we become witnesses to a crime. And our ability to recall these minor details may have a significant role in authenticating our memory of the offence.

[From BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | What do you remember?]

Cloud Computing… never sure how this dream will work out, but I know at a former employer we used largely centralized computing power with “thin clients” used by most of the people working “on the floor.”

The cloud is the latest buzzword doing the rounds in the tech world.
In essence it is a simple idea. It refers to data and processing power living online rather than in a beige box under a desk.

As we move towards a world where we are all storing more and more media in digital form - documents, photos, music or videos - moving it into the cloud offers unparalleled flexibility.

[From BBC NEWS | Programmes | Click | Harnessing the power of 'clouds']