A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
[Most Recent Entries]
[Calendar View]
[Friends]
Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Vince's LiveJournal:
[ << Previous 20 ]
| Sunday, July 12th, 2009 | | 8:45 pm |
Yesterday was Peak Oil Day.
Crossposted to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) peak_oil. I was too busy to post this, as I had company over. From The Oil Drum. Peak Oil Day - July 11 by Richard Heinberg On July 11, 2008, the price of a barrel of oil hit a record $147.27 in daily trading. That same month, world crude oil production achieved a record 74.8 million barrels per day. A belated happy(?) Peak Oil Day! Current Mood:  nostalgicCurrent Music: Bitter:Sweet, "Faith" | | Thursday, July 9th, 2009 | | 2:20 pm |
| | Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 | | 12:12 pm |
Detroit as a green city of the future, who'd have thought.
Hat Tip to The Energy Bulletin, which reposted part of the first article and linked to the second today. New York Times: Bike Among the Ruins: By TOBY BARLOW ONE night a little over a year ago, crossing Woodward Avenue, I crashed my bicycle. As I flew head over heels across Detroit’s main boulevard, I thought, well, in any other town, I’d be hitting a car right about now. But this being the Motor City, the street was deserted, completely motor-free.
While bike enthusiasts in most urban areas continue to have to fight for their place on the streets, Detroit has the potential to become a new bicycle utopia. It’s a town just waiting to be taken. With well less than half its peak population, and free of anything resembling a hill, the city and its miles and miles of streets lie open and empty, beckoning. And lately, whether it’s because of the economy or the price of gas or just because it’s a nice thing to do, there are a lot more bikers out riding. IMHO, this is a prime example of making lemonade out of lemons. Even so, the writer is correct; this is a good town for cycling, at least in terms of the straight streets and flat, open terrain. Some of the suburbs would be a different matter. Parts of Bloomfield Hills, Bloomfield Township, and West Bloomfield would be a real adventure to bike in. Despite the press, survival here isn’t so hard.  ( More on Detroit as a possible green city of the future under the cut. ) Current Mood:  contemplativeCurrent Music: Freeway Noise | | 12:06 pm |
| | Saturday, July 4th, 2009 | | 7:49 pm |
Ganguro catching on in Britain?
It's amazing what I catch while preparing my Overnight News Digests for Daily Kos. BBC: Japan's fashion rebellion goes West By Nina Robinson BBC World Service, London An underground youth culture in Japan which makes a rebellious fashion statement against traditional rules on eastern beauty, is taking hold on Britain's youth.
Manba involves devotees wearing dark tans, white make-up around their eyes and hair that is often a combination of neon colours.
British teenagers like 18-year-olds Eilish and Declan got caught up in manba after an interest in Japanese culture led them to start researching on the internet, where they came across the style. Seriously, this is one Japanese fashion trend that I didn't think would take off elsewhere. Last I checked, it wasn't even that common among cosplayers in the U.S., unlike Gothic Lolita, which has a small but dedicated following. Or maybe I'm wrong. Her social networks are important as she has friends in Japan and the US who are also into the style.
...
"There are also some in America. I'm quite good friends with some of the girls who do it in America." Looks like I am wrong. In any event, it seems that the ganguro gals in the UK appreciate the irony inherent in their fashion choice. "We're Western girls trying to be Japanese girls, trying to be Western - it seems like a funny circle to go around." I can't top that. There are also two videos that go with the report. Current Mood:  surprisedCurrent Music: Freeway Noise | | Friday, July 3rd, 2009 | | 6:58 pm |
| | Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 | | 1:27 am |
Goddess Meme
Ganked from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) nebris
Your result for Goddess Future Test...
Your Goddess is Artemis43% Artemis, 14% Brigit, 14% Venus, 14% Tai_Yuan, 0% Laksmi, 14% Hekat and 0% Romi_Kumu! 
Your prediction for the future is from Artemis, the Goddess of the Hunt. Artemis shows that you need to concern yourself with keeping more stress free. Worry and concern will not make things go better for you. Instead you need to think about things realistically. Clear your head of worry and think simply of what you can do to obtain your goals. Your fear over debt and/or loss will not do you any good, but action will definitely help you. You are capable of doing what it is that needs to be done. Anxiety is just wasting your time, but you will be successful if you let go of the strain and just breath and let your sensible side take over. Take care of things one step at a time. Things are much easier to do and handle when you break them down into smaller pieces. Analyze your situation and go from there. By attending to the details you will find that your obstacles are much easier to overcome. Suggestions: Look beyond the material, beyond the superficialities of life, to the heart of things, to the realm of causes rather than effects. Pay attention to your inner thoughts and perceptions, they are likely more accurate than you think. Pay attention to simple things, clean out useless clutter and noise so that you can listen to your instincts. Prediction: Look for new perceptions and degrees of perceptions to grow and expand for as much as the next 5 years.
Take Goddess Future Test at HelloQuizzy
Current Mood:  sleepyCurrent Music: Freeway Noise | | Saturday, January 24th, 2009 | | 3:52 pm |
Two of my favorite passages from Obama's Inauguration
Obama's inaugural speechFor everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act -- not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do. And all this we must do. To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it. A president who not only recognizes issues of sustainability, but also does not say "the American way of life is not negociable." I was wondering if I'd ever see the day. Current Mood:  amazedCurrent Music: Freeway Noise | | 3:13 pm |
Filed under "The Environment is cool."
Yet another article I ran across while preparing Science Saturday. CNet: Sundance Film Festival, starring...the environment
Posted by Michelle MeyersNevermind the Hollywood glitterati. Many of the films debuting at this year's Sundance Film Festival feature a more understated star known as Mother Earth, and she plays roles ranging from dramatic to mysterious to horrific.
With one film all about dirt, another about global overfishing, and another still about a family's attempt to live with no net impact on the earth, the environment is getting top billing this year at Robert Redford's indie film festival, which kicks off Thursday night in Park City, Utah, and runs through January 25.
Five out of the 32 documentaries competing at this year's festival--which saw record film submissions and strong advance ticket sales despite the U.S. recession--fall squarely in the category of environmental films. But that's just a small fraction of the number of such films submitted to compete at the festival and doesn't include two out-of-competition environmental documentaries making their world premieres.
"We turned down about 50 environmental docs this year, and some really good ones. We didn't get anywhere near that many in the previous two years combined," said David Courier, a programmer for the festival's U.S. and world documentary competition. "We've had a history of showing terrific environmental docs, but this is the year for it, for sure...It's absolutely a reflection of what's on people's minds." One of the pressures I'm under is to spend more money. Seriously. Since I use environmental documentaries in my classes already (the past two years I've shown "An Inconvenient Truth" to my geology and environmental science classes and this year I plan to add "The End of Surburbia" to my environmental science curriculum, even though I mock one of the people interviewed as an alarmist crank who is gloating over his predictions so far coming true), I may as well take a look at these and see which are worthy of my students' time. Even if I don't use them in class, I can recommend them to my students who wish to view them for extra credit. Current Mood: contemplativeCurrent Music: Freeway Noise | | Sunday, January 18th, 2009 | | 3:13 pm |
Oh, look, my cable/internet/phone provider is about to go bankrupt.
From Reuters: Wall Street on Charter Communications bankruptcy watch By Yinka Adegoke - Analysis NEW YORK (Reuters) - A debt reorganization by Charter Communications Inc (CHTR.O) could foreshadow a bankruptcy filing and will likely kick off a new wave of U.S. cable consolidation in the next year.
Charter, controlled by Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) co-founder Paul Allen, said last month it had called in Lazard LLC to negotiate a reorganization of its debt with bondholders.
The fourth-largest U.S. cable operator, Charter is highly leveraged with more than $21 billion of debt on its balance sheet versus a market capitalization of just $57 million. The poor capital structure distorts the valuation, experts say. Do the math. Charter owes 368 times what the company is worth, at least according to its stock price. Wait, it gets better. Charter said on Thursday that it had missed a $73.7 million interest payment, despite having more than $900 million in cash available to make a payment. The company has around $1.9 billion of principal debt due in September 2010. The news prompted Standard & Poor's to cut Charter's corporate rating to 'D' from 'CC'.
"The question is why did they feel they need to do this now when the credit markets are in the worse shape and given that maturities aren't coming through for another 18 months," said David Joyce, an analyst at Miller Tabak.
While it has 30 days before defaulting, the missed payment prompted fear among analysts that Charter might be trying to conserve cash while working out some form of bankruptcy protection. They had the money, but didn't make the payment. No wonder Wall Street is thinking they'll go bankrupt. It's also no wonder that they got into this fix in the first place. There is a silver lining in all this. For instance, No. 2 U.S. cable company Time Warner Cable Inc (TWC.N), widely acknowledged as a likely buyer of Charter's cable systems, is valued at around $2,400 a subscriber by analysts at Miller Tabak, while Charter's debt load is currently around $4,000 a subscriber. Oh, good. Time-Warner. My fiancee had nothing but good things to say about their service, while she has never had a good experience with Charter. That would be an improvement. It would also be an improvment over Comcast, who I've dealt with before. If this is true, then some good will come out of all this. Current Mood:  annoyedCurrent Music: Freeway Noise | | Saturday, January 17th, 2009 | | 9:34 pm |
About that plane crash? It's part of a trend.
Another topical article found as part of putting together Science Saturday. Wired: Birds, Humans Increasingly on Collision Course By Alexis Madrigal The number of collisions between birds and aircraft has rapidly increased over the last two decades, despite better technology to combat them.
The US Airways plane that improbably wound up floating in the Hudson River has drawn attention to bird strikes, but a U.S. Department of Agriculture and Federal Aviation Administration joint report (pdf), released in June of 2008, warned that the danger birds pose to both commercial and military airplanes was on the rise.
According to the report, from 1990 to 2007 there were 82,057 bird strikes. The trends in the collisions are disturbing as well: In 1990, the industry saw 1,738 bird strikes; in 2007, the number had increased to 7,666. Some of that trend is due to increased air travel, but the number of wildlife strikes has tripled from 0.527 to 1.751 per 10,000 flights.  Amazing what a disaster does to convince people to look for warning signs, isn't it? ETA: It's a problem in Antarctica, too. Reuters: Runway-loving birds are risk to planes in Antarctica By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent ROTHERA BASE, Antarctica (Reuters) - The world's most southerly bird has become a threat to planes in Antarctica after developing a love for sitting on warm, snow-free airstrips.
Air traffic experts are seeking ways to scare off the south polar skuas, a large and aggressive brown seabird, but without harming them. The birds are protected by the 47-nation Antarctic Treaty, which declares the frozen continent a nature reserve.
At the British Rothera research station on the Antarctic Peninsula, about 100 skuas often sit on the 900 meter (3,000 ft) gravel runway. The odd penguin or seals can also be hazards. Current Mood:  busyCurrent Music: Freeway Noise | | 8:19 pm |
Science says that Michael Lewis was right to call the top traders "Big Swinging Dicks"
Found this while putting together tonight's Science Saturday for Daily Kos. Wired: Financial Crisis Has Biological Roots, Too By Brandon Keim Successful stock traders may be physically prone to hormonal excess — a physiology that leads to success on fast-paced trading floors, but also to a global economy steered by hormonally imbalanced decision makers.
In a study of 44 London traders, the most successful tended to have longer ring fingers than index fingers, a ratio linked to high prenatal exposures to androgen, a male sex hormone. This exposure in turn is believed to increase adult testosterone levels.
By favoring ultra-aggressive hotheads, the financial world may be throwing a human-sized wrench in its own gears. Michael Lewis saw long in advance where testosterone and adrenaline junkies would lead the market in Liar's Poker, in which he described the culture of the time and introduced some relevant catch phrases, the first of which, "Big Swinging Dick" referred to a "big-time trader or salesman" and predicted quite well the scientific finding summarized in the article from Wired. For a post-script to Liar's Poker, read The End, in which Lewis finally sees the end to the culture that he chronicled 20 years earlier. Current Mood: busyCurrent Music: Freeway Noise | | 6:34 pm |
For the Final Fantasy fans on my flist
From Ars Technica. By Frank Caron | Published: January 16, 2009 - 01:30PM CT  Square-Enix has been extremely tight-lipped about Final Fantasy XIII. Aside from the odd scanned Famitsu page or brief recut trailer, very little is known about the new game other than the fact that it features some gorgeous graphics and will hit the PS3 and Xbox 360 simultaneously in the West. One disappointing new detail has been confirmed, though: Square Enix president Yoichi Wada has gone on the record to say that the long-awaited game won't be coming to North America or the UK until April 2010—at the earliest
This is probably not a big surprise. By the time this gets to the US, I'll probably be playing Final Fantasy XI with my finacee.
 fullCurrent Music: Nescaflowne on YouTube | | 2:49 pm |
The anime meme that's going around.
Ganked from keelieinblack. Go through the list and check off the titles you have watched. For our purposes, "watching" a title means that for TV and OVA series, you have to have seen at least one episode. For one-shots, you have to have seen the whole thing. At the end of each genre/category, add up your sub-total. At the very end, add up the sub-totals to come up with your grand total. If your grand total is 80 or over, congratulations -- you are an obsessive anime watcher! An Editor's Note: not all the titles listed here are great, and some are even steaming piles of crap. Titles on the list are here because they are either 1) genuinely good, 2) insanely popular, 3) good examples of the genre, or 4) just plain notorious. Good anime obsessives should be able to watch series with any of those qualities. ( Cut for long list and results. ) Current Mood:  coldCurrent Music: Freeway Noise | | Thursday, January 8th, 2009 | | 2:10 am |
| | Saturday, December 27th, 2008 | | 9:41 pm |
| | 7:06 pm |
A question for the Chinese speakers on my flist
Have any of you ever heard of The Epoch Times before? Until today, I hadn't, but was directed to an archeology story for the Science Digest by my regular archeology contributor, who sends me stories from publications from all over the world, including online publications in Canada, England, Ireland, Egypt, Australia, and the Philippines. It really broadens my knowledge of English-language journalism, as I check out every new source when I open up her links. So, when I read this story, I decided to go digging around. Here's the publication's " about us" page. ( These people claim to be the largest Chinese-language paper published outside of China and Taiwan and publish in 16 other languages, but have only been around since 2000. Really. )If you wish to read the editions in languages other than English, click here. Here is what it says about the Chinese Language editions of "Epoch Times." The oldest of the Epoch Times editions, the Chinese paper has been in operation from August 2000, when it was launched as both a website and in a print edition in New York. The Chinese Epoch Times (Dajiyuan) is now the single largest Chinese language newspaper in the world, covering 29 countries across North and South America, Europe, Australia and Asia. The Chinese-language edition can be read here. When I read all of the above, I immediately became suspicious. Anything that grows that quickly and quietly and has the kind of mission statement that this organization does is most likely funded by a religious organization. Sure enough, when I went to Wikipedia, its article on the paper mentioned that Epoch Times "was founded by practitioners of the Falun Gong spiritual practice, in response to what is regarded by human rights groups as nationwide persecution of Falun Gong by the government of the People's Republic of China." My suspicions were justified, but at least I now know the editorial slant. Honestly, it could have been worse--it could have been the Moonies or the Scientologists, or some other group that would be interested in converting me. Falun Gong might want my sympathies and my eyeballs reading their publication, but I doubt they're terribly interested in my soul. That said, I'm still interested in the opinions of the rest of you. Current Mood:  curiousCurrent Music: Final Fantasy XI Game Music and Freeway Noise | | 5:35 pm |
Yet another find--The Awesome Depression (Fake News from Wired)
Cross-posted to the_recession. Fake news to break up the gloom. Back to reality later. Scott Brown Leads a Guided Tour of the Most Awesome Depression Ever Another Great Depression! Hardly are those words out when vast images straight out of Walker Evans trouble my sight: Hoboes! Okies! Hoovervilles! Women who resemble Harry Dean Stanton! It's all so very... 75 years ago. Our go-to icons of abject, debilitating American poverty are so nostalgic, so sentimental, so analog. Our recurrent national nightmare deserves an upgrade. Let's face it: Flat broke and rattling a mug full of pencils, we'll still be the same wiki-addicted, diversion-craving exhibitionists we are now. Of course, I'm no futurist. Just a hysteria-prone pessimist. But I don't want to live through another Great Depression. I want to experience the Awesome Depression: classic destitution with a whole new interface. I believe the Children of the Petabyte are perfectly capable of reviving classic Depression-era pastimes—train-hopping, bread-lining—while making them uniquely our own. So climb aboard as I, your neo-hobo guide, unfold a day in the life of the future unfortunate. ( And off to the fantasyland of the Awesome Depression we go! ) Current Mood:  amusedCurrent Music: Freeway Noise | | 4:17 pm |
| | 12:37 pm |
So this quiz says I'm normal.
Ganked from nebrisThat should be reassuring, but I suspect there's something wrong with it--the quiz, I mean.
Your Social Dysfunction:
Normal
Being average in terms of how social you are, as well as the amount of self-esteem you have, you're pretty much normal. Good on you.
|
|
Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com
Please note that we aren't, nor do we claim to be, psychologists. This quiz is for fun and entertainment only. Try not to freak out about your results.
|
 blahCurrent Music: Freeway Noise |
[ << Previous 20 ]
|
horny
geeky
determined
