Follow Up to Climate Change Post
This report suggests skepticism about skeptics is in order. My main point still stands. It may be a long time before we get an answer.
Category: Uncategorized
Obnoxious Cheap Petty Gouging Hyatt
I spent part of the day in the basement of the State Capitol with Suzie’s group, where I was treated to a free and fast wireless connection to the internet. Flash forward to 4 p.m. After checking in at the Hyatt, I pop my computer out to check work emails, only to discover that I have to pay for wireless access. That didn’t particularly phase me; it was expected, if […]
One of My Pictures Goes A Little Viral
On April 29, 2009, I attended a Giants game at AT&T Park and took this picture and posted it on the photo site Flickr: The picture sat out there in the cloud somewhere, largely unviewed, until the day before yesterday, when I checked my Flickr stats and noticed that it had been viewed by 79 people. This has happened before with several of my pictures, when someone has used them […]
The End of an Unhappy Year
The Fourth of July weekend isn’t usually thought of as a time-marker, like New Years Day or Thanksgiving, but it’s become that for me. Last year at this time I had an accident on my bike, briefly described here, which turned out to be more serious than I’d thought, and which left me oddly discombobulated with thought of my own mortality and insignificance. Maybe because of that — or maybe […]
Droid Review After One Week
I’ve had my new Droid phone now for a little over a week, so being a somewhat tech guy I decided to post a short review. The bottom line: 8 (maybe even 8.5) out of 10. I really like it. The positives first. The Google Android 2.0 operating system on the phone is very, very good. It’s simple, straightforward, and fast. It integrates smoothly with GMail, my business email, and […]
On Health Care Reform
One of my four readers asked if I’d considered writing a post on health care reform in the U.S. I don’t know that I will say anything that hasn’t been said elsewhere, but here we go … et voilà: The health care issue in the U.S. is so difficult for four reasons. The first reason is economic, and really a no brainer: The real costs of health care are hidden. […]
Bonne Citation Politique
C’est à Alain Minc, dans Le Point le 6 aout: “Etre un libéral de gauche, c’est posseder un mauvaise chromosome, atypique dans l’ADN politique; c’est croire que l’intérêt général existe en dehors le marché, mais que l’Etat n’est pas l’expression naturelle et exclusive de cet intérêt général.” Je le crois aussi. Rough translation: To be a conservative leftist is to possess a bad chromosome, unusual in political DNA; it’s believing […]
Mordu par un Serpent
Il y a une expression en Anglais — “to be snakebitten” — qui veut dire mot à mot “être mordu par un serpent,” mais veut dire figurativement “avoir de malchance.” Moi, je suis “snakebitten” cette semaine. Ca commence par mon accident à velo. Puis hier soir, notre chienne Elsie, la plus mignon chienne du monde (regardez), a été mordue par un serpent à sonnette, qui est très dangereux à cause […]
The Short Version
Friday was a beautiful day for a ride. I rode into Santa Rosa, stopped downtown for a soda, then started home. I was riding up Old Redwood Highway, wanting to get to my son’s Geometry class (the last of his difficult summer school session) before it ended, so I could surprise him. I started to make a right-hand turn onto Angela Drive, but realized at the last second that I […]
The Cost of Fear
Even the world’s best pros are so consumed with avoiding bogeys that they make putts for birdie discernibly less often than identical-length putts for par, according to a coming paper by two professors at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. After analyzing laser-precise data on more than 1.6 million Tour putts, they estimated that this preference for avoiding a negative (bogey) more than gaining an equal positive (birdie) — known […]