February 2004 - Posts
oh, hell, it's just an outline at this stage, but i'll post it anyway as a “food for thought“ item.
Planetary Defense: Planning with Phantom Asteroids SPACE.com - Tue Feb 24, 9:17 AM ET
papers at conference site:
now me:
“planetary defense“ - makes one think about fending off the nasty alien meanies from the other side of the galaxy or something. but this is just an exercise in risk management: evaluate the probabilities and corresponding damage estimates, the cost of potential mitigation and contingency actions, and finally, do that cold, hard cost / benefit analysis that tells you what, if any, activity is “worth it“.
i haven't read the stuff in the papers above yet, but a couple of quick thoughts occurred to me:
- evaluation of potential risk: a constant factor ?
if you consider that damage is inversely proportional to probability, there is a constant of proportionality involved. thus, since the risk is equal to damage times probaility, it is also equal to this constant. i'm not sure what that number would be, but it should only take an estimate of one good event in order to nail down the entire risk scenario. this process would be validated by evaluating more than one scenario.
- cost of effective mitigation vs contingency
- present value of future damages
- present value of future preparedness
- present value of future rebuilding
- comparison: is it worth it ?
- “mitigation“ via avoidance: settlement of space.
- discontinuous effects: zero impact, through losing it all, and other threshold effects
- all damage is not equal: differential survival of various socio-economic-political systems
- this analysis applies to other large scale events as well - positive as well as negative
- similarity of the consequences of - and therefor response to - catastrophic events: consolidating efforts
- to warn, or not to warn: “need“ to know vs. ability to act
- economic byproducts of preparedness:
participating in these programs may be unjustified from a strictly statistical perspective, but they could still generate a good deal of economic and technical growth (a la the “military-industrial complex“). on the other hand, excessive focus on these events could grind an economy down as well (eg, the effect of the cold war arms race on the soviet union). in the end, our current (evolving) systems will probably appropriately allocate resources in any circumstances.
other links of interest:
how about marriage to animals ? inanimate objects ? corporate entities (legal recognition for being married to one's job) ? various combinations or groups thereof ? transient concepts ? and so on.
actually, i like the one about being married to one's job. that sort of dedication should be rewarded wth some sort of benefits, especially when there is implicit and even explicit expectations of such from single vs. married employees. and there should be corresponding divorce benefits as well...
meanwhile, i'm going to enter into a group arrangement with the universe, a snowflake, and my choice of memes. oh, and my couch - that's been in a common-law marriage with my ass for years.
this statement is wrong.
please feel free to agree or disagree.
of course, a more frequent “response” is none at all. i think i prefer this the least. indifference, unawareness are damnations of a different kind. but i dunno; there is a certain comfort in limbo. still, i won't pretend that silence equates to amicability.
ah, well, y'know, i could ramble on about this for quite a while, but forget it, i'll just come to the conclusion: i'll just be me, you'll just be you.
well, one particular flavor, in this case...
some weekends, many weekends, when i'm playing couch pilot, i browse around and land in front of an old episode of “joy of painting”. i don't know what it is, something zen, something i don't feel the need to name, and it takes only seconds for the world to drop away, and a comfort to settle in, watching bob ross create yet another world, where whatever we want can live.
maybe this seems a bit goofy, but it happens. i don't know why; but there's no need to mess with it. it's a very simple thing. while watching, it strikes me that bob, to use one new-age expression, is one of the “masters”, a human accomplished at his own beingness. even through the barriers of television, reruns, and his own death, some essential essence shines through.
yeah, well, ok, a large-ish commercial enterprise has sprung up around his work, and i have no idea what the reality of this person really was (is?). still, at least, his work in the tv series is all i need. in fact, it is actually somewhat discomfitting to see the websites and businesses that have sprung up about him on the web. independent of this, he created a persona that seems complete in itself, independent of practical realities.
it would very well be interesting to consider this phenomena in terms of concepts of existence independent of source, and dependent on perceiver, and so on, but hey, never mind, sometimes the warm fuzzies are enough.
interesting thread at
craig's place, meant to link to this earlier
(most recent comments last, as usual for blog, reverse of rss):
In a message dated 2/17/2004 13:10:07 Eastern Standard Time, gsowa@ writes:
Scroll down to Exporting of America and click on the link........I have started my boycotting of such companies. I just got done pulling my account from Bank One and with great pleasure told them why I was pulling out. Once they bring our jobs back to our American workers I may re-consider but I did not want my personal information going to India......That means banking account number, SSN, address, phone number etc..........
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/lou.dobbs.tonight/
boycotting firms who offshore outsource ?
unfortunately, such a boycott will likely be about as effective as boycotting japanese cars was in the 70's and 80's. there have been recent articles that the old "made in america" labeling campaign has little or no impact today with american consumers. but what the hey, at the very least it's worth a try as a delaying tactic in order to give more time for economies to adjust to the new realities. however, it will be difficult to make that an effective tactic given the involvement of these companies in every facet of our everyday lives. when consumers and the average citizen get in between a rock and a hard place in such matters, that is when the value of government becomes apparent as a vehicle for collective action. still, a federal protectionist policy can backfire if maintained for inappropriate reasons or duration, and will fail in the end anyway, but again, a delaying action may be useful.
on the other hand, that _is_ an interesting point about huge amounts of private information making its way overseas. so what, you may say, we've already released it to these companies anyway. ah, but that's with the underlying assumption and assurance of having recourse to american institutions whenever any abuse of information occurs or is threatened. there are no longer any such assurances. perhaps this is the means to the end of maintaining a strong us economy, keeping jobs here, while not flying the protectionist banner. if we enforce corporate adherence to privacy laws, including their responsibility to submit to (american) legal remedies if and when problems occur, it should then become much less expensive to keep jobs here. not sure how world opinion could fight that, since we're merely protecting the rights and society which we've built with time, taxes and blood. the other way around that would be for the countries who want us business to adopt the same protections, etc. - effectively adopting much of the us legal system, institutions, culture, etc. that carries with it its own overhead, and will reduce or eliminate any advantage to offshoring, since such countries would have roughly the same economic conditions as here.
which is beginning to expose the root of the matter. sure, businesses should be able to reduce costs, and a global economy is a good thing. but in this case, they are making money by exporting the fruits of our culture - built and paid for with the personal resources of every one of us and our ancestors. they are pocketing our tax dollars. so tax 'em back. they want to offshore ? fine. then there should be a labor tariff to equalize the corporate payroll. an american corporation should pay equal amounts for equivalent skills, regardless of where they find them. so they have a choice - pay the money to the workers, or into the treasury, their choice. (i suppose an equivalent process would be to reduce their payrolls all around, as long as they correspondingly reduced revenues, etc., but that would be an impossible task.)
of course, this will then expose the true state of the us economy. much of the "recovery" is an illusion built on deceptive practices such as these. once something closer to the truth is exposed (i'm under no illusions that we will ever actually _arrive_ there), we can get to work on the _real_ problems.
list of american companies using offshoring
the show is supposed to run 2004.02.17; here's a link to the transcript (valid after the show airs, obviously):
cnn - lou dobbs - 2004.02.17 transcript
related post:
run that by me again ?
it's a tempting thought to run to the blog with every odd thought that pops into my head. thankfully, laziness takes over. it takes a lot of work to put flashes of insight into words that can actually be read and make sense. that kind of work also interrupts the flow of thought, perhaps blocking further mental progress along the lines that inspired the posting in the first place, making what may have at least seemed important into something much more mundane.
on the other hand, there are numerous occurrences wherein i have neglected to record significant (to me) insights for issues that have bothered me for years, thinking i would be able to recall them later, only to have recall merely of the fact of the insight, and not of the insight itself. or, perhaps, merely the apparent significance has worn off, and the trivialities i can recall now are merely the earlier thoughts in different context. hmm, is context a valid innate part of insight ? than perhaps this objection is more complex, and the loss is still real.
in any case, postings tend to be for one of two purposes: to communicate to others (not “with”; see below); or to communicate to my future self. some posts serve both purposes, or so it seems that i hope. but without some sort of readership, however that may develop, this becomes a personal journal (or notes leading to something larger in the future, but that's not pertinent at the moment).
which is not really a problem, except that “postings to self” have to a large part supplanted “communications with”. they generally haven't been an additional communications channel, but instead have rechanneled what used to be email discussion threads into mostly one-way blog entries. and so, the richness of those exchanges have been lost. makes me think that an annoyance factor was eliminated as well; nothing like peppering someone's inbox with one's mental minutiae.
it seems the mechanics of a web log does not lend itself readily to discussions of the type found in one-on-one email exchanges, nor those found in discussion groups / lists / bulletin boards. this appies to the social import of blogging as well: whereas the cultural mores associated with a personally addressed email demands a response, blog entries, like mass mailings, can be left hanging with no perceived slight on either end. both the tools available and the expectations of the author and reader(s) are important in determining the extent and type of responses. which seems to be a rather trivial observation, but i think it's not often made explicit.
so, in my case, i sometimes find it frustrating when i try to find a way of combining several of these expectations. i'd like to maintain the intensity, respect and responsiveness of one-on-one exchange while collaborating with a group in a public forum. there are some discussion groups out there that seem to approach this, but their shortcomings, to me, outweigh their usefulness in most cases. i'd like to target certain individuals to solicit feedback a la email, target others mostly as potentially interested readers and possibly critiquers, but short of full-fledged contributors, and finally have a public permanently accessible record of all the exchanges, one that can be addded to at any point in time.
meanwhile, i think some interchanges have been “black-holed”, neither blogged nor emailed, having not clearly met the criteria for either. with only one channel, all communications urges are naturally funneled into it, no questions asked. this may or may not be desirable.
so i wonder, is this multi-channeled communications phenomena (which extends far beyond the media discussed above - think print, broadcasts, telephone, webpages, etc.) uncovering the true nature of individual relationships, or is it actually re(de)constructing them ? i suspect both, to both “good” and “bad” ends. nothing new here, generally speaking. i guess all i'm really doing is pondering my own personal awareness of phenomena of this type affecting me at the moment, and how to deal with it. which also makes me wonder how much of this sort of thing has an impact _without_ my awareness.
one additional point at play in all this is how one perceives one's audience in any communication. in one respect, it makes sense to tailor one's message to the intended audience, but this can also lead to a sense of loss of integrity if the message tailoring begins to affect core content itself. and one's habitual audience-sense also plays a large part.
this explains part of the historical man-woman communications gap, for example, with men bringing habitual impersonalness into a relationship. do women do the reverse, bringing habitual intimacy into public relations ? note that this refers to stereotypes, albeit generally valid ones as cultural biases of this type are not changed overnight by simply declaring them so; they have the weight of all of evolution behind their existence (this isn't offered as justification or condemnation, but simply in an attempt to accurately characterize the source and size of the issue at hand).
and how does one have a personal journal with a public audience ? the idea of filters becomes important here. categories. summaries. etc. and “communications“ becomes any sort of information or data. ontologies. the nature of knowledge.
stuff to think about. in order to effectively write about what i want to write about, and get feedback, it seems i first need to write about writing about things ;-) or maybe i'm just procrastinating.
- sick
- amazon web services for wishlist queries is sucking ever harder
- i hate being sick
- chinese food
- sick sucks
- blah
some trip ideas for this year, kind of a reminder-to-self:
- dog sledding (“mushing“?) at double jj (near muskegon, mi)
- ski trip to snowshoe, wv (march ?)
- ski trip to whistler/blackcombe, bc (april)
- ski trip to alyeska, ak (may?) - spring skiing with long days !
- drive to co for antarctic job fair, end of april (?). haven't done this in a few years; would like to mix in some skiing at a-basin. mainly a camping trip. stop to visit friends in stl area.
- sailing lessons in seward, ak (june-july ?)
- shipwreck diving / horse riding / other stuff in tobermory (july ?)
- air ivanhoe fishing trip in northern ontario ? and maybe visit some relatives up that way.
- ideas for fall months ?
- double jj ranch for halloween (riding)
- i would like to get to someplace far north for the holidays, little or no daylight and northern lights.
- hmm, need to get some more diving and biking in here. rafting / kayaking ?
also - maybe i should get a job, eh ? ;-)
anyway, the trip up to shanty creek (mi) was good as always. several feet of snow on the ground, maybe eight inches of powder on the slopes when we got there friday night. good food, good people, pretty sunsets, etc. really quite a deal for $214. brought up frozen pizzas (snacks) and easy-light firelogs this year, worked out real well. some folks took a horse drawn sleigh ride on a star lit perfectly still zero degree night. apparently someone was handing out free chili and applejack somewhere, but i missed it as i was on the slopes most of the time.
the bar scene was rather tame, but that's probably just me. the tubing was fast, but last year's slowness made it hard to get everyone out there. the other thing that worked out well was that the agent at the resort recommended that we get meal reservations this year, and instead of waiting in line we went right to our seats all weekend. very cool.
i've been doing this for five or six years, and i am really impresed with the service at this place, in addition to the consistent beauty, good people and weather.
outa here for a few days of skiing up at shanty creek. always a good annual trip. kick back, do whatever. three condos for our group. the one i'm in this year is all guys. sounds like we're hosting the parties ;-) so i was thinking of stocking up with one of those molson 55 packs and some frozen pizzas. i don't know what everyone else will bring ;-)
anyway, looking forward to some good snow. the stuff around here is getting rained on :-(
is anyone else disappointed that they left off the best parts of the superbowl yesterday ? i mean when there's nudity, cover it, right ? ;-)