Check Your Mirrors

• Jan 4, 2010

Check Your Mirrors

Occasionally I end up driving other people's cars.

Invariably, I have to adjust the mirrors.
I often question why they were set the way they were, and the answer is usually some variant of "I like it that way".
I realized that probably a whole lot of people probably see it that way.

Setting mirrors is not a matter of personal preference.
There is an absolute right and wrong way to do it.

Before you accuse me of being a mirror nazi, consider that car accidents kill more Americans under 50 than disease and murder combined; 100 every single day.

As someone who rides a bike, skates, rides a motorcycle,  has driven large commercial trucks with large commercial size blindspots, and nearly been run over inside other peoples blindspots, I say again, with emphasis, setting the mirrors on your car is not a subjective exercise.
Doing it wrong can literally mean the difference between life and death.



I have heard on more than one occasion "I don't want to look at the ground."

Actually, the ground is EXACTLY what you want to be able to see.
Cars are on the ground. Bikes, and small children whose heads are no higher than the bottom of the window, and the balls they roll out into the street, all on the ground. When you parallel park, the curb is on the ground.
Even the largest truck has its tires on the ground, so if you can see the ground, you can see the truck.
The chances that you need to be aware of a very low flying airplane, or perhaps a hovercraft coming up behind you as you drive are very close to zero.

Many people set their mirrors so that the horizon is in the exact center of the mirror. This means an entire half of the mirrors area is wasted with sky.
That half of the mirror being wasted means an unnecessary blind spot.
If the horizon were instead at the very top of the mirror, you could still see all the way down the road behind you, and in addition you could see anything right beside you down lower than the window level as well.

The second mistake is setting the side mirrors so that a substantial amount of what you see is your own car. But just like you don't need to worry about the sky when you merge, the chances your rear fender is going to hit you is pretty darn low.

One reason people do this is because at that angle you can use the side mirror to see directly behind. That's what the rear-view mirror attached to the windshield is for.

The other reason is to have a reference point to help determine where what you see in the mirror is in relation to your car.
Of course, with a little time and practice anyone will get used to the new position. And everyone should really know exactly where the edges of their car are anyway (I sure wish the DMV mandated cone tests for everyone). And you can always just move your head a little bit and see the car in the mirror.
But if you really feel you need to see the car you are driving as a reference point, just leave the tiniest sliver of the back of the trunk visible, so you get maximum mirror area for seeing whats out there moving about and potentially colliding with you.

While its still important to double-check by actually turning one's head, with the mirrors set properly it is in fact a double-check, and not a first check of blind spots. Because there are no blind-spots.
Set up properly, you can make it so there is virtually no blind spot at all. So that if a little person were hiding right alongside the door, you'd know it without even having to turn your head. So that a passing car is visible at all times, first in the rear view, then in the sideview, and finally through the window, without any gap along the way.

It will feel a little odd at first. Give it a chance. And when you don't die in a fiery and gory wreck, come back and thank me.

Christmas Lights

• Dec 14, 2009

Christmas Lights

So many people, when the subject of Christmas lights come up, they acknowledge they are nice, but go on to add "but they are a waste of energy".

As someone who feels strongly that American's use of energy and resources is morally unacceptable, I would like to be very clear about this:
Christmas lights are NOT a waste of energy.

That 80% of car trips have only the driver or a driver and one passenger, yet seat from 5-7 people is a waste of energy.  That we live, on average, 20 miles from our jobs is a waste of energy.  Uninsulated attics and unweather stripped doors and windows in houses and power steering and air conditioning in cars, all electric kitchens, and cars that weigh 50% more than they did 20 years ago and have 200% more power are all enormous wastes of energy.
Buying enormous amounts of crap that no one really needs and that get shoved into a closet or thrown out after a few weeks wastes energy in manufacture and transport.

Not one of those things provides any significant increase in quality of life.  None of them make people happy to be alive.  At most they provide a tiny increase in convince.  At worst they do nothing but cost money.  None of them create joy.



In a land where profit is considered the only motivating factor for nearly everything in life, filled with people who don't know their neighbors, where 50% of people can't be bothered to take the effort to use their turn signals, for a few weeks a year people do something with no financial benefit, no increase in comfort or convenience, no direct personal benefit.
You don't even see them from inside the house.  Everyone else passing by sees them.
They turn an ordinary neighborhood into a magical place.
They create joy.
Which makes them one of the few valid uses of energy in this country.
Because ultimately, making it enjoyable is really the only point there is to life. 

So go ahead and enjoy those giant flashy displays and don't for a second feel guilty about it.
Put up your own even.

You can get a strip of LED lights for less than $10 that use less than 5 watts of power, (far less than a single florescent light bulb).
I even found a set for under $5 that runs for days on just (rechargeable) AA batteries.

But LED or no, the lights are worthwhile and good.

A world without christmas lights is not a world worth saving.

Last Day of Youth

• Dec 11, 2009

Last Day of Youth

In less than a month, I will no longer be one of those people who are "in their 20s".
I'm driving slower, I own my home, I'm self-employed, and I have a credit rating above 800.
Defying all that makes sense in the world, I've been gradually becoming a responsible adult.
As of midnight Jan 9th of next year, it will become official.

Living to 90 is a fair goal.
If you chop life into 3 big blocks, 90 / 3, then 0-30 would be youth.  60-90 would be old age.  Which leaves 30-60 to be middle aged.
Wow.
Man.
Crazy.
I am a month away from middle aged.
I'm a divorcee who lives with 2 cats and is currently researching the tax affects of different types of individual retirement accounts.
I don't entirely understand how this happened.




I'm not one to throw parties.
In fact, the last time I hosted a party entirely on my own was - never.

On Saturday, January 9th, 2009, I will have my "Last Day of Youth" party.

Full Contact Spoons and Amtgard in the park (probably Ohlone in Berkeley)

Video games: Perfect Dark and Super Smash Brothers and Mario Kart.
Like we used to play in high-school.  I've been playing against my 8 year old neighbor, so I don't suck as much as I did back then.

Hours of non-stop dancing starting at sun down (probably at my house - unless someone with more space than me and a kick-ass sound system wants to volunteer to host)
I went through thousands of tracks, one by one, and selected across multiple genres for maximum danceability, ordered them by beats per minutes, and have them beat-matched and cross faded by robot DJ (aka my laptop - nothing like the real thing, but about $600 cheaper). 7 hours worth of rock-a-billy followed by funk followed by hip-hop followed by "gypsy punk" followed by pop.

There are to be no presents or gifts of any kind.  Seriously.  I have enough stuff and enough money.  And not enough space.  This includes home-made stuff and things that would actually be useful to me.  Nothing.
(Edibles and sorbiles -cake, alcohol, whatever- would be appreciated, but that would be to share with everyone.)
Your presence is my present.
Playing spoons and dancing non-stop until my neighbors complain or we pass out from exhaustion is my present.  Might be a good idea to start an exercise program now to prepare...

Because I would like even my feeble friends to attend, I am suspending my usual rule that anyone who shows up to spoons has to play.

I can not think of a good way to end this

The Wine Barrel (population and parenthood)

• Dec 4, 2009

The Wine Barrel (population and parenthood)

The Earth has been around about 5 billion years, life about 4 billion.
Half a billion years for animals, 200 billion for mammals.
200,000 years of humans.
For the first 192,000 years or so, the human population was under 10 million people world wide.
Increasing 10 fold took 6000 more years.
We rocketed from 100 million to a billion in just over 2000 years.
The next billion only took 120 years.
And then 30.
And since the 1950s, we have added a billion people every 13 years or so.

We are at around 6.75 billion people now.

Its estimated that it will hit 9 billion in about another 30 years.
That new 2 and a quarter billion people will be our children.



We like to point to the 3rd world, to Asia and Africa, but in the measure that matters, the US is by far the most overpopulated country in the world, as well as one of the fastest growing.



Population is only an issue because of the finite resources the Earth can provide.  If we had unlimited resources there wouldn't be any reason not to keep increasing indefinitely.

If everyone used the same amount of water, land, and energy, and caused the same amount of pollution as the average person in the third world, we would all be ok for a long time to come.  Due to lack of ability, what we call poverty, people in the third world tend to use less than their share of world resources.
The average person in the first world uses 5 times more than the overall world average.
The average American uses 20 times more.  Each of us uses about 20 times more water, 20 times more fuel and electricity, 20 times as much land to produce our food, produces 20 times more waste and pollution. 
Which means that in the big picture, each of us counts for 20 people.

So our 305 million population may as well be 6.1 billion, far more than China's 1.3 billion.  They would have to increase some combination of actual population and consumption per person by far before we could legitimately point the finger at them.

It also means that each child we have counts as 20 people, turning our fertility rate of 2.1 (already above the replacement rate of 2) into the equivalent of 42 per woman, 6 times higher than the highest rate of any third world country - and almost 17 times higher than the world average.



In the US alone there are 200,000 children waiting to be adopted.



It is one of the most basic and universal desires is to reproduce.  How could it be any other way? Because if that drive weren't passed along genetic lines, our ancestors wouldn't have bothered, and we wouldn't be here to think about it.

There has been a widespread assumption that because it is natural and universal that therefore it should be considered a "human right".

Our modern world does not resemble the savanna we evolved on.  We also have biological instincts to eat whenever food is available just in case there is no food tomorrow - and the result is rampant obesity.  Violence is natural and universal, but we agree as a society that the costs are not acceptable and make the conscious decision to repress it, both as individuals and as communities.
A good number of us making the conscious choice to go against instinct and manipulate ourselves in ways that take into consideration the reality of our world.  We don't eat everything in front of us, we repress violent impulses - and we make a conscious choice not to breed.
Because, we can do that, we can think, and make choices.


To make wine or beer, you start with grape juice or grains and add microorganisms.
For them it is an incredible feast!  Sugar and carbs as far as the eye can see, no predators, no competition, perfect weather.  So of course they have a really good time, girl fungus meets boy fungus, there's plenty to feed the babies and things just couldn't be better.  And then after a while they literally die from drowning in their own waste products as the population gets completely out of control.
(And then we drink that waste product, but that's another topic entirely)

Human beings, in theory, are a lot more intelligent than yeast.  They don't even have brains.  As individuals we can choose not to have children.  But as a whole, an outside observer would not see much difference between the species.  As a whole, we continue to breed at a rate related only to the resources available today, with little or no regard to how sustainable those resources are.

A great many people - including liberals and environmentalists and those who are childless by choice - become indignant when this topic is brought up.  Reproduction is considered by many to be a fundamental (God-given?) right, and suggesting otherwise brings to mind eugenics programs, or the murder of female infants when China first instituted its one-family/one-child program when sons were the only form of social security the society had.  Those are not inevitable outcomes. 

As a specie all societies choose to discourage some of our natural instincts in such a way that slight personal restrictions result in a far happier society over all.  It may be perfectly natural for me to want to punch some annoying person right in the face, but the government isn't going to give me a tax break for doing it.
Just the same, it is only natural that I want to have my own kids, related to me by DNA, but if it is going to end up making life that much more difficult for all of the people who are already here, perhaps a tax penalty is more appropriate than a credit.

Average cost for fertility treatment is $12,000, and 12% of US couples seek it.  In about 1/2 the states this is covered by insurance.
Given the 200,000 existing children who need homes, I find this immoral.  Think what medical services could be provided to people who are already here with that $4 billion.


Governments could, at the very least, encourage people to have less children simply by removing tax breaks for kids. 
I don't actually think that is going to happen.

But you and I can still choose on our own to act, even if everyone else isn't likely to fall in line.  Its been calculated time and again that simply having a baby has greater impact than all the imported GMO processed food and single-person commutes in SUVs could ever hope to have.  From an ecological standpoint, it would be better to drive a hummer and eat at Mickey Ds but adopt your child then to live the hippy lifestyle in a solar powered yurt with a grey-water garden and create 3 brand new babies of your own.

And now we get to the real crux of the matter.
Being aware of this, just how much personal sacrifice are we willing to make?  I want the experience of creating a child.  I also to avoid being an amoral moral and not a hypocrite.  (A moral hypercrite? Yes.  I aspire to be a hypercrite someday.) 
Like most people, I have developed a defensive rationalization to allow me to not feel guilty about doing what I wanted to all along, even though I really know better.

The way I see it, I personally can't be expected to be held responsible for or make up for the excessive consumption of everyone else around me.  I couldn't if I wanted to.  I personally have a sustainable ecological footprint (i.e. if everyone on the planet used the same level of resources as me, we'd all be set indefinitely).  If me and my hypothetical future partner have 2 kids, once we die, overall, the population hasn't gone up.  If we have just one, its gone down by one.  That seems like a decent compromise to me.  I'd like to have one, and adopt one.  (As a bonus, I can choose to have one of each gender, and more precisely choose the age spread).

Many people object to ideas around population control as an emotional response to implied guilt about already having children, and feeling defensive about kids that are already here.  A potential person has nothing in common with a real human being who is actually here.  Acknowledging that resources have a finite rate of renewal is not a personal attack on you. No one is saying your child isn't wonderful or that you made any "wrong" choices. All I am saying is, however many blessings you have, stop now.

Similarly some people in these discussions suggest that any one who advocates population control should kill themselves if they really mean it.  This equates the mere idea of a person, a hypothetical, potential person, with an actual specific person who is here right now, thinking and breathing and feeling.  We aren't talking about abortion here.  Not having a kid is not killing by any definition.  Any discussion about who a person who does not exist but might possibly is equally ridiculous.  That kid who could someday be is no more likely to become the next president than it is to be a serial killer who enjoys torturing victims. 

Bottom line is, having less children today will be much less painful than wars of dwindling resources some number of decades in the future.

Status message, part 2

• Nov 23, 2009

Status message, part 2

My last collection of status messages was way too long.
I wouldn't want to go through and click all those links.
But they were all very interesting!
For reals tho!

So I'm going to post the collections here a little more often.
Plus, then I don't have to write anything new.  Writing is hard.  And time consuming.
And it consumes a lot of calories, having to think so much.

Without further ado, the gmail status messages I have had between my last post and today (most recent at the top):

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



parkour class = most fun thing ever
http://www.sfparkour.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2639

THERE IS SO MUCH TO LEARN

my legend builds... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kirsten-dirksen/when-hackers-took-my-vide_b_356801.html

The brain uses about 20 percent of the calories that we eat.

finally scientific confirmation that men are jerks http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/11/12/men-are-far-more-likely-to-abandon-a-seriously-ill-spouse/

large SUVs may be illegal on your street. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hey_wait_a_minute/2004/08/californias_suv_ban.html

I am not off the grid. More like I sip and nibble at the edges, while typical Americans gobble giant gluttonous globs of grid.

Incompetent people more self-confident than competent people.  This explains SO much http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Incompetent-People-Really-Have-No-Clue-Studies-2783375.php

The best predictor of whether someone voted for or against Prop 8 was how frequently a voter attended a place of worship.

culture=conformity

2 hours by car, or 12 min by BART - the choice is clear; you might accidentally touch a stranger on BART.
BART ridership up 50%.  San Mateo bridge traffic up 300%.  Americans make me sick.

"the only difference between the good guys and bad guys is who's paying the bills" - Jacob Aziza, problem solver.

http://trackersbay.com/outdoor-adventure.php

I am down to 35 inbox messages and 2 marked unread

removing a quarter million single occupant commuters sure makes for a smooth rush hour

I get a perversely intense joy from the bridge closure

http://www.progressiveboink.com/2012/4/21/2912173/calvinhobbes

I have normal cholesterol, glucose, and blood pressure levels

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/01/fiscal-therapy

week 2 of gym membership.  intensity level mixture of almost crying and almost throwing up.  I will be in the best shape of my life, assuming I survive it long enough.

I've been thinking about mortality lately. I've decided to spend the brief time I have here being awesome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Chu

I am short, Black, and poor.  The three least attractive traits for single women, statistically.  I must be one hell of an amazing individual to have had the experiences I had dating this past year.

just because I agree with you once does not make you an idiot

The more charming a guy is, the less he respects her

not learning from your mistakes is the ultimate sign of living in the present

cats don't worry

"You don't make me feel guilty at all.  You inspire me."

white women are racist http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-race-affects-whether-people-write-you-back/

word hard, makes lots of money, die young: http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2009/09/death-declines-during-depressions
perhaps government should be looking for ways to extend the recession

My home; clean. In 3D. http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=BFE455B7-3CC4-478C-9AD6-D51C2CF8393F

Vigilante coast guard turned pirates: robin hood or thug? http://blogs.mcclatchydc.com/files/oct-feat-pirates_36.indd.pdf  OR  http://www.fcaea.org/aid=276.phtml

http://parkingday.org/

It is a luxury of the economically comfortable to cater to irrational fears

Research has shown that cognitive behavioral therapy is just as effective as anti-depressants.  Without any medical side-effects.
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/journal.aspx?journalid=13
http://www.womensmentalhealth.org/posts/cognitive-therapy-versus-medication-in-the-treatment-of-depression/

"Green" too often today means "moderately less destructive version of something we don't need in the first place

Schools taking fingerprints of poor children before giving them lunch http://www.19actionnews.com/Global/story.asp?S=2885663

So much for "large heavy vehicles are safe" http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/a-2009-chevy-malibu-destroys-a-1959-bel-air-literally/

New anti-capitalist rate structure http://biodieselhauling.org/Rates.html

1500

"Good taste is the first refuge of the uncreative."

Health insurance companies make over $1 million per employee http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2009/performers/industries/bangbuck/employees.html

lest there was any doubt the real reason medicines cost so much:  the money is going to profits.  Also note that air travel is highly subsidized, and neither environmentally nor even financially sustainable: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2009/performers/industries/bangbuck/employees.html

Math, Geography, and Reading Tutor

teacher = hero

I worked with a guy who is 70 years old

I told him I could handle the work, but he insisted on helping

I said I hope I can still do this work at 70

I asked him the secret

he said, kind of quietly, "lots of sex"

Now accepting information, contacts, and donations regarding non-profits, grant writing, education, and libraries.

I am now officially a treasurer. 
Now I need to figure out what that actually means...

Free wood http://sfbay.craigslist.org/..eby/zip/1359697320.html

http://laughingsquid.com/never-go-to-work-by-they-might-be-giants/

http://community.feministing.com/2009/08/25/the-irony-of-anti-sex-positive-feminists-arguments/

Commuter dog http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2372125.ece

http://gubbinsexperiment.blogspot.com/2009/08/questioning-industrialization.html

THERE IS SO MUCH TO LEARN

• Nov 22, 2009

THERE IS SO MUCH TO LEARN

I have not been writing much lately.

Spending my time with work, and new friends, and classes.

Work remains fun, after 3 years of doing the same things (compare to a record of 10 months max at any one job for the rest of my life prior), easy enough to be good at it, challenging enough to stay interesting. 

Just the past few days involved somehow fitting about 10cubic yards of random stuff into the truck for the largest hauling run I've had so far, installing drywall in an attic furnace room so the building could pass fire inspection, and careful deconstuction of the walls holding in the old biodiesel tanks at the old biodiesel fuel station so the lumber could be reused.

But far more important and interesting is the classes.

Little by little I add to my stable of random skills.

Expert in nothing, but my goal is for everyone there is, I can do at least one thing moderately well that they don't do at all. 

Maybe there is someone who does a little carpentry and electronics soldering and computer software troubleshooting and lockpicking and sailing and shooting guns and bow and arrows and swordplay and bicycle repair and auto mechanics and unicycling and gardening.

Just in case, I'm taking muy thai and jui jitsu and I just took a seminar on making fire with natural materials, another on edible wild foods of the East Bay, and today one on tracking animals, and also took my first parkour class.  Judging by the skill level of my classmates, watching YouTube videos and practicing on my own at the playground and on random obstacles I find walking around the city has been more beneficial than I realized.

I feel more and more like a character from an action/adventure movie, where the hero somehow knows how to do everything. 

And yet what strikes me continually is how much I still don't know.  Not even counting all the stuff I am not interested in learning, but the skills I still want, if money was no object, would take a lifetime to learn.

And money is an object.

So one lifetime isn't enough.

I have had debt for a few years, collected over a cross country trip/move and major vehicle failure, months of unemployment,  going back to college, buying a newer larger trailer, and having to buy my ex out of said trailer when she moved out.

I am getting tantalizingly close to paying off the last of it.

I decided once I do, classes take priority one.  Jobs will be fit around them, not the other way around.  I'm looking to work about 20hrs per week.

I am saying this publicly so as to have some accountability.  If you hear me say I am working too much come next summer, remind me I said this.

Thanks

The Water Heater

• Oct 2, 2009

The Water Heater

I had been looking forward to buying a tankless instant water heater before I had even moved out of mom's place.

Unfortunately, each place I lived had a perfectly good water heater already.
Besides, my 6 gallon tank was no where near as wasteful as the 80 gallon monstrosities in regular homes.

Then, last week, the tank began to leak.
I had my excuse.



I discovered that there is only one company which makes instant water heaters specifically for RVs. Having no competition, they price it around 5 times higher than others.
I decided to go with a small house/cabin unit instead.
I found the least expensive one online; it arrived quickly. It spent a week in the box as I didn't have the time to install it. When I finally did, turned out I hadn't considered the vent when I measured, and it wouldn't fit. Damn.

I sent an email asking about exchanging it for a smaller unit.
Within 15 minutes they called me by phone. They said they couldn't accept a return since I had already begun installing it.
I was ready to just sell it on craiglist and buy the smaller one, accepting that it was my own stupidity to begin installation without measuring, plus the website did clearly say the original box was needed for returns, which I had already recycled.
And then, without being asked, the guy offers me a 15% discount on the new smaller one I was going to have to purchase. He emailed a custom order form, with a price even slightly lower than what he had just offered over the phone.

Wow. Beyond expectations.
The only business I know with customer service like that is, well... my own!



If you ever need a water heater, seriously, this is the place to buy:
http://www.ebay.com/sch/gas_water_heaters/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=25 [note - apparently they no longer exist]
And no, I don't get anything for recommending them. Come on. You know me better than that, don't you?

So, now it'll be a few days before I get the smaller unit and I can install it properly.
In the meantime, I was sick of being without hot water so I jerry-rigged the one I have into place. Between some parts from my old water heater, a flexible metal pipe I found on the street, a piece of wood 2x4, and a generous amount of tape, I have hooked up the water heater. It leaks a little where its attached to random-found-pipe, so I have to put a bowl under it while the water's running.

But as far as the heater itself goes...
you turn on the faucet, and within a second, the fire is blazing. You turn it off, poof, like that, its out.

It is much hotter than my old one ever was.
The total flow rate is higher too - its like taking a shower in a real house!!

I had gotten used to low flow showers. I had forgotten how pleasant being drenched with warm water while naked can be.
And it NEVER RUNS OUT!!!!
Well, I guess once my propane tanks ran out. In a few months.

As I was taking my 30 min long shower, I thought about how I am actually saving energy overall, compared to before. While before I was limited in the length of a shower when the hot ran out, the tank also kept the water hot 24hours a day, while I was a sleep, while I was at work, always.

The biggest unit they sell should be enough for a one bath house. For a really big house, if everyone wants to shower at once, you can double the capacity by linking two of them in series.
Or using with an existing tank heater, you could leave the tank at its minimum and have the output of the tank go into the instant, which would then raise the temp the rest of the way only when you turn on the hot faucet.
Way more energy efficient, endless hot water.
While an 80-gallon tank heater is anywhere from $600 to over $1000, a 4GPM tankless is only $325.
Why tank heaters even still exist, I really don't get.
Akin to American's rejection of the metric system and Dvorak I suppose.
Well, at least you know