The Obscurarium

An incredibly dorky art project...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:33:05 GMT

I'm cranky. For the 4th time in 2.5 years, our hot water tank has gone belly-up. This time, the flame won't stay lit. I will not have a hot shower tomorrow AM, and I'm ready to go after GE and Rheem with a torch and pitchfork...

So, by way of stress relief, I decided to engage in one of my long-term art projects. If such can truly be called "art." You see, I got into a conversation about 4 months ago about Internet memes. Conventional wisdom is that such things are fleeting and ephemeral. They show up, everybody laughs, and then they fade into nothingness. By the time next year rolls around, fully 90% of the Internet won't even know they ever existed.

I disagreed. While, true, memes and the copycat works they inspire are meant to be cultural throw-aways, so too were more traditional art pieces in the past. A Rembrandt portrait, hastily done. A still-life found buried under old boxes in a French apartment. How many artists never achieved fame until long after they were dead?

Someday, something that started as an Internet meme might become art. An image that lasted for less than 2 hours on 4chan, might end up hanging in the Louvre.

To demonstrate how this might be so, I took a famous work of art and started incorporating some Internet memes into it. Just as a gag... but then every once in awhile, someone would resurrect it and I'd go home and add something else.

Well, 4 months later, and I have something that's actually pretty funny, IMHO... Click on it to see the large version, which is kind of necessary to really spot all of the details thus far:

Appropriate responses may be:

1) Ha! Win.
2) WTF? I don't get ANY of this.
3) I see what you did there... you should add X to it.
4) Dude. Too much free time, apparently. You suck.

Internet statistics would suggest 90% will go for #2, 6% for #4, and maybe a 2%/2% split between #1 and #3.

#4's, you can bite me. My water heater is broken again, and this is stress relief. I don't need your pity. ;)

Joining the fray on gay marriage...

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:35:46 GMT

I have no idea why I'm compelled to post this, given that I'm very likely to get flamed to little tiny bits. But given that my social circles, my Friends' list, and the Interwebz at large, are all a'twitter with the Maine gay marriage vote, I feel some compulsion to chime in.

Here's the thing, kids... I am PRO gay-marriage in theory, and ANTI gay-marriage in implementation. How is this possible?

Well, because I'm actually anti straight-marriage in its current implementation as well. As zoethe and others have correctly pointed out, marriage is a social compact. It's not some right given by [G/g]od, nor some inalienable birthright granted by nature. You can believe what you want, hang out with whom you want, and yes, sleep with whomever you want -- even if you have to do so discretely in some parts of the world if you wish to remain upright. But when you take advantage of certain social compacts, you have to play by the rules of the society who created them, and who are ultimately responsible for bearing the costs and imposing the responsibilities that they entail.

So what does this have to do with heterosexual marriage? Well, our system is broken -- especially at those times when things go wrong. In response to the progress made with womens' rights in the last few decades, we have now massively unfair and inequitably-applied alimony and child welfare standards. Abusive heroin-addicted fathers would never see their children again, while abusive heroin-addicted mothers get joint custody (NOT a theoretical situation here, given that a colleague is living through this right now.) We have ridiculous tax structures that benefit some couples while penalizing others. Our society as a whole has all sorts of operational problems that result from name changes by marriage -- or occasionally even worse, NOT changing names as a result of marriage.

Even when things are going very well in a marriage, the social systems that it's built upon are inefficient, inconsistent, and occasionally downright broken. As we progress with new Homeland Security initiatives (read: Secure ID and Secure Flight programs), impose new restrictions on medical care (read: HIPAA laws), and turn our schools into hardened bunkers, even the "traditional" trappings of marriage become a burden for anyone who isn't in a One-Man-One-Woman-Same-Last-Name-and-Address relationship.

So now we expand to gay marriage. When things are going well, married gay couples will probably have about the same level of hassle as your average straight couple with different names. But when things go badly? (Bearing in mind that the US divorce rate is currently around 50%...)

How will US courts -- bearing in mind that the laws are all set up with an assumption of the traditional marriage structure in mind -- deal with child custody issues? How about alimony, and who gets it, and why, and for how long? How about even tax issues, given that millions of dollars in IT that run the machinery of this nation don't have the ability to have two 'M' or 'F' check-boxes on the same form? Percolate that down to customs forms if you travel abroad, or FAFSA forms for a kid's college aid? What about disputes with family when one spouse dies?

I am not in any way saying that this is fair, or just, or that the problems cannot be overcome. What I am saying, however, is that gay marriage in the USA will be a fantastically expensive, convoluted, and technical process to implement. Then you complicate all of those tractable problems with the intractable problems of a significant portion of the population (and government functionaries) believing that gay couples are an affront to capital-G God, and re-igniting decades of the same kind of social discord we saw in the racially-based civil rights movement.

As a married straight guy, I suppose it's easy for me to say this. But I think that the gay marriage movement is reaching a little high right now. Atomic one-step change would be great, but it's not realistic. Instead, the gay-rights organizations should be focusing on fixing the problems with marriage in general. Fix the tax system, fix the HIPAA laws, fix child welfare processes, fix estate law, and fix ID standards and practices. It's a big, big job.

But if you do that, then there wouldn't be any reasons not to let ANYBODY who wants to get married, get married. Then it's a social contract with a tractable meaning. Right now, the meaning and implication of marriage is widely open to interpretation -- city to city, state to state, and even department-to-department at the federal level. We spend zillions of man-hours on entitlement programs, making sure that anything breathing American air has a valid Social Security number, but somehow nobody can get a grip on a social entitlement like marriage?? It's just not a priority yet, and someday hopefully it will be.

At the end of that day, the only barrier to gay marriage will be the religious one. And ultimately, despite the wailings and demagoguery that goes on about religious nut-jobs, America is fundamentally a secular nation. But presently, it's the religious nut-jobs leading the charge against gay marriage, and most of the rest of the nation honestly just doesn't care enough to sign up for the turmoil it would likely bring.

I would love to attend the weddings of some of my gay friends. (And I'm pretty sure that I'd also bear witness to the divorces of a few other gay friends, should their own weddings ever occur...) But when that happens, I don't want their happy event to be responsible for making a fairly-dysfunctional legal and administrative system fall entirely into disarray.

(Not to go off-topic, but it's the same reason why it isn't going to work to fix Health Care in this nation by just opening the flood gates to another 47 million people, without fixing the harder problems that created this situation in the first place. Throwing more bodies into a broken system doesn't make the system better. Fairness alone cannot be the ultimate goal of any functioning society.)

It just doesn't seem like a good idea to make things slightly happier for some, at the expense of everybody being a lot less happy in the end. So we have to do this correctly the first time, and not just hope that by calling something a "right", that an entire society will make a million overnight adjustments to fall into line. Especially when that "right" really isn't anything other than a mutually agreed-upon set of rules and responsibilities by society as a whole.

Our society as a whole has rights too. And it has the responsibility to fix things that are broken so that those rights can be justly exercised. Gay marriage is not an issue of rights for gay people. It's an issue of our society as a whole failing in its responsibility to effectively implement and maintain social contracts.

Halloween 09

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:46:19 GMT

gieves and I had a fantastic Halloween again this year. There was much screaming and possibly a few ruined pants among the children of our neighborhood. The frightful festivities were then followed by a visit to Ferrett's house for the Post-Bachelor/ette-Party-Party of yuki_onna and justbeast.

Best experience of the scare-fest: Me leaping out of my concealing pile of leaves (behind the tombstones) at a group of ~13 year-old kids, and a few of them shrieking loudly enough to blow out everyone's eardrums for miles around. Then, after I sat back down in my pile and said "Happy Halloween" to them (in my trademarked spooky-voice), they called down the driveway to their friends:

"Hey - you have to come up here and see this! It's like motion-activated or something!"

We were laughing about that one for the rest of the night.

Because we have a professional photographer as a houseguest this weekend, I will not punish your eyes with my own photos of our Halloween display. Instead, you can read (and see) all about it HERE on the LJ of kylecassidy.

Happy Halloween!!

Neighborhood politics

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:44:26 GMT

A week away from Election Day here in Cuyahoga County, I would strongly encourage all of you locals to bone up on Issue 5 versus Issue 6. Other than the billboards and lawn signs that have started popping up around town, I think these issues are being buried in the line noise of the casino and animal-rights debates.

They are the most important issues on the upcoming ballot, bar-none.

For years, I've lamented the fact that Cleveland-area voters clamor and protest for change, but then continue to elect the same old corrupt (and now indicted) local leaders that have tanked this region for the last 25 years. So long as there is no forward-looking vision in NE Ohio, there will never be progress.

Issue 5 is the hastily-thrown-together proposal by the incumbent County Commissioners. It forces the creation of an elected study commission to investigate changing county government sometime in 2011 or beyond. For now, it retains the 3 commissioner positions who are pretty much unanswerable to anyone. It keeps the existing power structure in the county in place, and shelters the jobs of the current batch of officials -- many of whom, I will reiterate, are under indictment or investigation for the widespread Cuyahoga County corruption probe.

Issue 6 is a fundamental change to county government, making the region more like Pittsburgh or other reformed rust-belt areas. Starting next year, it creates a County Executive and a board of council members representing the entire region. It creates boards for economic development and education, and eliminates a bevy of elected positions that NOBODY in this area (and I mean NOBODY) has enough information to intelligently vote for at present, like Cuyahoga County Sheriff or Coroner, by making them council-appointed.

Vote NO on 5, and YES on 6 if you have any hope of changing this area.

Why do I say that? Well, not only does Issue 5 pave the way to retaining the current structure, should the committee decide (on their own) that's what's best, but it creates a whole fleet of NEW elected positions for the committee itself. When you go to the polls on election day, how often do you know the pros and cons of candidates for County Recorder, or Coroner or Engineer?

If you, yourself, are boned-up on the issues, how about your neighbors? Or the elderly around town? Or the folks who live down on East-55th? Is there even enough information out there in the public domain to MAKE such a decision wisely? In most cases, these positions are running un-opposed anyhow -- so is it really democracy in action to "elect" a person who cannot be removed from office by anything other than a referendum vote when nobody knows who they are, most of them don't campaign, most of them have been pointed at the position by the incumbent county power structure, and (at present) many of them are under investigation??? How many of you even know the platform of a single candidate running for this new study commission? Do you think you can knowledgeably vote for 15 of them??

Issue 5 is status-quo. Issue 6 is change.

What happens if we pass them both? Well... nobody is really sure, quite frankly. The one thing that is clear is that county government would change next year. But then the commission would have power in 2011 to tear down that structure all over again after only 1 year, and re-stack the deck however they like. However you slice it, passing both spells turmoil for years to come.

"But we'd be the only county in Ohio to have a structure like this", you say? Mostly true -- since only Summit County has a similar structure. But Ohio is the only state in this region, and one of only 6 in the nation, that has a current centralized-power structure like what we have at present. The more common form is an elected council, with local reps, and a charter government.

Whatever else you do on election day, make sure you know what's going on here. If you believe in Issue 5 -- fine, vote that way. But for god's sake, whatever you do, don't vote for both!! And only vote for either after you've read up on the issues. Cleveland is dying, and the last thing it needs is more of the same medicine we've been feeding it for decades.

An infusion of inspiration

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:42:35 GMT

About 5 weeks ago, gieves and I quietly embarked on a project with an uncertain outcome. We started infusing liquors.

Most cooking experiments have outcomes that are known in minutes, occasionally hours, or at very worst, days. Your successes and failures are based upon your own skills, techniques and the quality of your ingredients. With infusions, quality certainly matters, but patience... weeks and weeks of patience... are essential before the magnitude of your success (or failure) will be known. Skill only involves being able to throw things in a jar, and swirl it once in awhile. The hard part is figuring out what's going to happen with an assortment of complex flavors a couple of months down the road.

Today, we un-batched the first of our 6 experiments:

Vanilla & Fig infused Canadian Whiskey

If this is an indication of future success, we're in for a very good fall!! The liqueur is sweet, aromatic and unctuous. The smooth smell of vanilla comes out immediately, followed by the thick sweetness of figs before the warm burn of the whiskey works its way down your middle.

On urging from gieves, I made a martini for our first mixed, home-infused treat. Loosely based on the conglomeration of drinks or martinis we've had at three different restaurants -- Crop here in Cleveland, a bar in Portland Oregon, and a little restaurant in Sonoma CA. A sort of figgy, vanilla, apple cider martini...

* 2 oz Vanilla-Fig infused whiskey
* 1 oz VSOP Brandy
* 1 oz Apple Cider
* 1/4 oz Grand Marnier
* 1 spoonful infused fig paste

Yes -- the figs that had given almost their all in the infusion were removed, mixed in the blender with simple syrup and some water, and whipped into a paste that will probably be excellent on toast. 80-proof toast...

Shaken and served with a piece of brown sugar-caramelized bacon from a batch of fresh Gibbs' bacon that I cooked up earlier today -- albeit with this drink partially in mind.

Oh my god is this good! I'm pausing in my typing every minute or so to take another tiny little sip, and nibble some of the sweet, now-liquor-infused bacon.

We might be organizing a small gathering in the near future for heavy hors d'oeuvres and infusion drinks. Details to come... maybe... probably...

Upcoming experiments to report on:

- Home made cucumber-thyme gin (I'm excited about the potential of this one)
- Apple-Lemon Liqueur
- October Surprise (an apple, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, clove, pie-in-a-bottle experiment...)
- Fresh-picked blueberry infusion
- Fresh strawberry infusion (well... fresh-picked in the spring, but frozen since then.)

Cultural satire applies even when it shouldn't...

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 04:55:03 GMT

So for those of us born into the Queen's Good English, it's easy (and fun) to visit sites like Engrish.com and Engrishfunny.com, and laugh ourselves sick at the mangling of our mother tongue. Some instances are the fault of Google Translations-like tools, while others are problems with homonyms or synonyms that don't entirely apply.

As I sit here in meetings in Tokyo, I must admit that I was shocked. Some of the most devoted fans of Engrish mockery? Asians.

The Koreans laugh at the Chinese's feeble attempts, while the Chinese laugh at the Japanese, while the Japanese laugh at the Koreans. Of course, they admit that sometimes they don't understand why certain examples are funny. Those are usually generated by their countrymen. But they more than compensate with the delicious schadenfreude derived from making fun of the distinct Engrish dialects of their Asian peers.

As a devoted Engrish fan myself, it was rather surreal to watch while a Korean woman tried to explain to a Japanese man why "Hambuggers" was funny.

Sometimes the world is a crazy place. =)

More friendly fire...

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:15:58 GMT

Since I bothered to post yesterday about the doings of the UN General Assembly, I figured I might as well give an update...

* Col. Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi:
Short Bio: Absolute leader of Libya, leader of the "Revolutionary Sector", publicly ordered assassination of dissidents living abroad by Libyan hit squads, sheltered known killers and terrorists throughout the 90's, self-appointed "King of Kings of Africa."

"I congratulate our son the president, Obama ... we'd be content and happy if Obama can stay president forever"

* Hugo Rafael Chavez:
Short Bio: President of Venezuela, leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, coup-leader against President Carlos Andres Perez, expropriated private businesses in multiple sectors resulting in severe shortages and 30%+ inflation, decimated Venezuelan economy, changed Venezuelan constitution to eliminate his own term limits.

"It doesn't smell of sulfur here anymore, it smells of something else. It smells of hope. ... May God protect Obama from the bullets that killed the late president [John F. Kennedy]."

Wow. We've really changed our standing in the world.

And just in case you've not yet bought into the Cult of Personality, how about a video of New Jersey public schoolkids taught to sing a song of praise to Obama during class time, set to the tune of "Jesus Loves the Little Children". ("He said red, yellow, black or white/All are equal in his sight. Barack Hussein Obama.")

Seriously?? "Jesus Loves the Little Children"??? Of all the songs you could have picked to propagandize, that one? It's almost like they're trying to sling arrows at the Administration. I actually feel bad for Obama on this one, since at least a couple of his supporters are just complete boneheads.

Judged by the company you keep

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:03:12 GMT

I wish I had the time for a full-bore political post right now, but unfortunately I do not. Nonetheless, I cannot help but comment upon yesterday's visit of President Obama to the UN General Assembly.

He gave a speech. He received a soaring round of applause.

I'm sorry, but this is a problem.

It's not that anything in his speech was overtly Marxist or damaging. He continued to beat the drum of a waning America, which is unfortunate, but nothing that cannot be reversed (because nobody in the rest of the world is going to step up to the plate anytime soon...)

The problem is how the rest of the world sees him, and that they're willing to applaud him roundly. George Bush got jeers and a mini-walkout from the UN General Assembly. Bill Clinton got jeers and a mini-walkout. So did George Bush I, and Ronald Reagan. Superpower leaders always get lukewarm welcomes from the General Assembly.

That august body is essentially made up of petty dictators. For every elected first-world leader in the room, there's two representatives of Asian despots, or South American junta generals, or African dictators, or middle-eastern warlords. Hugo Chavez gets ovations at the General Assembly. Robert Mugabe gets rounds of applause.

American Presidents do not. And that's because we're a direct and justifiable threat to 66% of the self-appointed power-mongers in that room.

We're supposed to be a goal-oriented, unified front against the sort of single-point, autocratic nations who comprise the majority of that body. For pete's sake, Andrei Vyshinsky nearly started a nuclear war in that room in 1948 by calling for world defensive preparations against the USA, and he got a round of applause.

Being popular in the UN General Assembly is like being popular on the streets of Bogata. You're excessively open with your largesse, and there's probably a pile of bodies behind you somewhere...

The fact that our President has earned the respect and support of the world's most infamous and unstable leaders is not something I'd be proud of. With friends like that, we really don't have any need for enemies.

A Dirty Mind

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:21:22 GMT

I'm sorry... I don't really have a FILTHY mind. But it's fairly well down there in the gutter most of the time.

But if you ran a business whose name was the initials of a well-known carnal act, would YOU run an ad like this?

Was there ever really a wrong time to try one of those? (And I'll point out to the advertiser, that the best way to "Get Started" generally doesn't involve continuing to click on things on the Interwebz.)

Since apparently some people really don't know, we're talking about BJs Membership Warehouse here... the Costco competitor. And honestly, the only reason I knew it wasn't an ad for some new male-inflating product was because there weren't any puppies or middle-aged women running through grassy fields in the ad.

"Now's the time to try BJs. And that's why there's new Fellatix breath freshening tabs..."

Mad Skillz

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:14:30 GMT

Have you ever taken out the trash, mowed the lawn, or fixed the car?

Have you boasted about this to your friends or family, only to be asked: "What do you want? A friggin' medal?"

Yes. Yes I do want a friggin' medal!

And now I can have it! Thanks to the World Skills Competition, which was going on while gieves and I were in Canada. It's a biannual competition that brings over 900 competitors from 47+ countries together for a no-holds-barred, Olympic-style throw down. There are judges, there are medals, there are national anthems, and the Prime Minister of Canada opened the 8-day event noting that the "world's eyes are on Calgary" in the most significant way since the 1988 Olympics.

Raise your hand if you've ever heard of the World Skills Competition. Go on. I'll wait.

Right.

But my friends, you have NO idea what you've been missing. Re-branded from their former name as the "Skill Olympics", they've captured the imagination of the world. You could defend the honor of your nation and win a global medal in high-stakes competitions like:

* Metal Roofing
* CNC Milling
* Floristry
* Restaurant Service (Waiting)
* Refrigeration

... or my favorite:
* the Team Caring competition

"On your marks competitors... get ready... aaand... CARE!"**

The host nation took gold in Cabinetmaking, Restaurant Service and Graphic Design, only to be narrowly defeated by the brutal Australians in the Beauty Therapy competition. But their spunky newcomer's strong Silver showing in the Aircraft Maintenance competition, beating out the crowd-favorite UK competitor, really pulled at the heart strings of the Canadians and made front-page news in the Calgary paper.

The demonstration competition in Plastering and Drywall Systems went to France, with Switzerland and Japan close behind. The WSC committee is currently in hot debate whether Plastering will be a mainline sport when the games go to London in 2011.

The US team was a shameful boil on the rump of our fine nation. We took silver in Automotive Service and Welding. Consolation prize "Medals for Excellence" were taken in Printing, Car Painting, Cooking and Hairdressing. I blame the schools.

But how can anyone resist signing up?! You can "battle it out against the clock, and against difficulties commonly encountered in the workplace."

Grrrrr!!!! The 2011 HP Printer Paper Jam competition is MINE, bitch... do you hear me? MINE!!!

I don't much like my chances in London, against the crushing speed and power of the Japanese and Norwegian Information Network Cabling teams, though. Those guys can plug in Ethernet like nothing I've ever seen before. Golly...

No. Freaking. Joke.

(** - I really do have to wonder... Do they like bus in a bunch of invalids from the nearest nursing home, dump them into the ring, and send in the national teams to try and sort things out? Are you judged on your compassion? Do you lose points if the diapers are all full before you finish changing all of the TVs over to Maury?? The website is unacceptably vague!)

The Silent Takeover

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:37:36 GMT

"We will breed with their women, and in time, our differences will be forgotten."
~ Peter Griffin

In this divisive political age, many pundits have chosen to dig up old Karl Marx quotes, predicting that the Communists will eventually take over America from within.

Yet little notice has been paid to the fact that America is silently and insidiously taking over Canada. You see, due to an enormous shortage of Canadian sperm donors, at least 80% of babies conceived in Canada with donated sperm actually have American fathers. Due to health policies put in place by Canada in 2004, there are (fact) only 33 sperm donors for the entirety of Canada.

So they're importing baby batter from us uppity Yanks.

Most of the frozen goo comes from southern Georgia and northern Florida. So to all you fertility-assisted Canucks out there: keep an eye on your baby's neck. See that red? That's America taking over.

I predict Nascar crowding out professional Curling in Canada within the decade.

Update and 2009 Spot the Spirit

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:48:06 GMT

I have a rant all stored up, but alas, lack the time to type it up just now. I will sometime soon. For now, updates:

A) Thanks to everyone who came to the party on Saturday! No firm headcount yet, but we blew through our estimates easily -- all but about 5 pounds of the 45 pounds of beef were consumed, as were 9.5 liters of rocket fuel!! The last guest left a few minutes before 2 AM, which isn't a record, but still a pretty respectable showing.

B) LAST CHANCE THIS SEASON: Weather-dependent, anyone want to go see the Lake Erie Crushers on Wednesday night @ 7:00 PM? (They have games tomorrow, Thursday, and Labor Day weekend as well, but gieves and I can't do those days, so it's our last chance, at least...)

C) The 2009 Spot the Spirit Contest

This is the third-annual incarnation of our attempt to guess at when our Lords and Masters of Capitalism will deign it appropriate to start cramming Christmas Cheer down our gullets. Before we know it, those end-of-season swimming pool sales will vanish in favor of early-bird sales on pre-lit aluminum Christmas trees. Maybe we'll get a few weeks of Halloween in there, if we're lucky...

Da' Rules:
1) By the end of this week (8/28/2009 @ 5:00 PM EDT), comment on this post registering your guess for when the first in-store display or hard-copy printed advertisement will appear from a retailer, for a fully-fledged holiday sales drive on Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/etc accoutrements. Make sure to include a name if you're a non-LJ user posting anonymously!!

2) Advertisements will be defined as materials printed, broadcast, or otherwise displayed in a public area where any odd person off the street could view it. Some liberties may be granted (such as inside an admission-gated location), but it must be generally publicly accessible and not at some private event. No tupperware parties or stamping events, etc...

3) Signs with simply the holiday name on it do not count -- it must be a specifically holiday-targeted advertisement or decoration for commercial products or services, using applicable imagery for the holiday being pimped. It should be that store's official holiday sales kickoff, in a format that at least implies it will be around and replenished from the time you see it through the end of the calendar year.

4) Year-round locations such as "Christmas Stores" or other such permanent or semi-permanent operations also do not count. This includes craft stores or places that start selling the make-your-own-decor bits pretty much as soon as last year's holiday ends.

5) LJ comments making a guess CANNOT be revised. I will use whatever date is submitted as your original guess.

How to win:
There are two ways to win:

1) Grand Prize: Guess the correct date, or be the closest to the date within 7 days +/-. If nobody guesses correctly within 1 week of the first spotting date, there is no winner.

2) Be the first one to Spot the Spirit. Send me a photo or copy of the advertisement with verification of the date it appeared -- or at least the date you saw it. If there is no winner, per method 1, you will be declared the Grand Prize winner. If there IS a Grand Prize winner, your consolation prize will be a round of drinks at a happy hour or other social event sometime.

Grand Prize:
As in previous years, the grand prize will be one lavish home-cooked meal for the winner and a guest, at our home. Example menu from at least one previous win can be found here. Your food preferences and tastes will be considered when composing a menu for the award feast.

Happy Guessing!

You've been reading Epicurious too long when...

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:54:46 GMT

If you're not familiar with the foodie site Epicurious, it's a food magazine, recipe archive, and foodie community centered around an extensive database of higher-end recipes.

One of the hallmarks of the site is the tendency for members to post comments on recipes, extolling the wonderful virtues of the meal, but recommending "tweaks". In many cases, these tweaks change the very nature of the recipe into something else. Sort of like taking a recipe for "Garlicky Roasted Chicken", and saying "I LOOOOVE this recipe, and so do my kids! But I refuse to cook chicken, so I used a Rump Roast instead, and substituted shallots for the garlic. Great recipe - delicious!"

*stare* Garlicky Roasted Chicken != Roasted cow haunch with shallots.

So it was with great amusement when gieves and I sat down to breakfast this morning. Last night, she made a spiced Apricot Tart, which is pretty good. It contains stewed fresh apricots, corn meal, several eggs in the batter, and reduced poaching syrup drizzled on top. But the crust is a little weird, and the filling is complicated to make.

Our analysis?

You know, we could use dried apricots -- or better yet, plums -- for this. The corn meal is a little weird, but if we substituted oats and used more butter, the crust would be less crunchy and pretty good. The eggs make it a little dense, so maybe if we just used egg whites and beat them into a foam first, and then folded that in. We'd have to sprinkle spice and sugar on top, since we couldn't use the poaching liquid or it would make a light fluffy top crust collapse. That'd be pretty good! Make a note on the recipe.

But we loved this Apricot Tart recipe. Highly recommended?

*stare*

The addiction returns

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 13:48:15 GMT

There's something about the moist heat of mid-August that seems unwelcoming to NFL football. It's a game best played in mud and snow.

But that didn't stop us from driving 3 hours last night to go see the Steelers play the Arizona Cardinals in the first preseason game of the year. Loge suite seats in beautiful Heinz Field, catered with all of the junk food and beer a football fan could want. The only down-side was having to get up at 5:30 AM this morning to drive back home in time for work.

Steelers won 20-10. I lost my voice screaming at the action.

Damn, I've missed football. I need to turn in my Nerd card now or something... my love of Steelers football is unseemly in one who is otherwise pretty geeky.

In sickness and in healthcare

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:49:49 GMT

By now, all of you have managed to read the 2000+ pages in the Universal Health Care bills that our leaders are trying to ramrod through Congress, right? Of course you have... (just like the politicians supposed to vote on them.)

Well, for those who have not, an interesting article popped up on CNN's "Most Popular" list today. If you haven't been keeping a first-person interest in the health care debate, well... now's the time to start brushing up. And I want to point out a few things about this article before you read it:

1) It's on CNN - not Fox News or Newsmax or some other source that makes a habit of trashing the current president's policies. And it's even written by one of the Editors of CNNMoney. So don't accuse me of shopping my sources.

2) It's clear that the article has pissed someone off, because while it's #2 on the "Most Read" list at present, it's all but impossible to find on the main site. Anywhere. Can we say "burying a story" boys and girls? (Let's hear it for automatic content aggregators that don't succumb to editorial control of pages!)

3) It's the only source I have yet seen to, basically, come out and call the President a liar on this issue. Obama keeps saying "You have the freedom to keep your current plan." As it turns out, the bills don't say that. They say the precise opposite -- and the article explains why.

I'm not even going to editorialize on this. Just read the article. I've been railing against Universal Health Care, in the form they want to create it, since the very beginning. There's nothing more to be said, except that it's about time somebody in the major media had the balls to stand up and blow the whistle on this crap.

The case against community agriculture

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:05:12 GMT

This is still a post that I'm not quite happy about yet, but I feel it's time to release it into the wild. If for no other reason than I've been promising it to a number of folks for awhile, and have been getting gently hassled about when it might see the light of day. It's unlikely that I'm going to be able to do much more on-the-ground research in the near future, so consider this more of a very long abstract than a paper...

It has become very hip and trendy to talk about CSAs -- Community Supported Agriculture operations -- and similar non-profit organizations like City Fresh, who function in a similar manner. Right off the bat, I can say that they serve a very noble purpose, and their overall goals are pure. They want to help people eat better by providing inexpensive, high-quality produce to everyone. By using ideological marketing and a bit of grass-roots ingenuity, they're cutting through the clutter of mass-market consumer product marketing and encouraging people to pay more attention to what they eat.

That's great.

But are they really a benefit to the food distribution chain, and/or our society as a whole? Do they serve a purpose beyond being an audible voice that makes people think a little harder about the Food Pyramid? Or are they actually self-defeating enterprises, whose proliferation endangers the very goals they set out to achieve?

I would argue that they are rapidly becoming, if they are not already, the latter. Because this is going to be another long research post, it is...

** Sustainable Agriculture in America

You may recall from my long-ago three-part response to "The Omnivore's Dilemma", that organic, polyculture agriculture in America is, ultimately, a pipe dream at our current rate of population growth. We have crossed the threshold of population density-to-arable land whereby increasing agricultural yield is now a necessity, not a profit exercise. On even some of the most fertile land that the USA has to offer, the polyculture extravaganza that is northern California, it is already impossible to feed the geographically-local population without imports from the Corn Belt. [1]

What this means is that in order to keep a carrot in every pot, agriculture has been reduced to a simple equation:
(Productivity x Area) ÷ Population = Required_Food + Remainder

Area is fixed. Population is growing. Assuming required food per capita is reasonably constant, that means that either productivity must increase, or remainder must decrease in order to keep the equation balanced.

Let's take a look at what is actually occurring.

According to a regional survey conduced by Iowa State University [2], in 1995 there were 3 CSA farm organizations in Iowa. In 1998, 25 projects affected more than 40 farms. By 2004 there were 38 CSAs in Iowa. According to the USDA 2007 Census of Agriculture, there were 487 farms in Iowa involved in CSA projects by 2007. [3] Nationwide, there were 12,549 individual farms involved in CSA activities. I could not locate any aggregate numbers for total acreage, but the reported average size of 6.7 acres means that it's not unreasonable to speculate that at least 84,000 acres of land were dedicated to CSA activities.

That's a very small number. Slightly more than 0.2% of all US harvested cropland. But it's a number that is growing rapidly. And it's a number that whittles away at the productivity formula. Due to the "organic" farming methods used, and the fact that the CSA's strive for crop diversity to meet market demand, even when the crop is not ideally suited to the soil, estimates are that CSA farmland acres are only an average of 1/3rd as productive as the average commercial farm. That's probably a very generous number, given that California CSA's are probably 100% as productive, while midwest CSAs are probably more like 20%.

On the whole, we have an increasing trend that is decreasing productivity. At the same time, population continues to increase. For now, CSA activities are whittling away at the Remainder element of our equation. But for how long? And when do we reach critical mass where farmers start converting important commercial acreage to CSAs to meet a market trend?

** Are CSAs good for farmers?

One of the major touted benefits of CSAs is their ability to form an urban-rural partnership. A 2004 survey of CSA shareholders indicated a generally huge satisfaction with the quality of their produce [4], with 99% of respondents satisfied with freshness, and greater than 80% satisfied with overall convenience. This seems to be the driving force behind many CSAs, given that the same survey found 76% of respondents ranked the freshness as the primary reason they participated in the CSA.

On the bottom end of the scale, what didn't shareholders like about their CSAs? Well, only 8% ranked "Desire to try new foods" as a reason for joining the program, and only 26% stated a desire for a "sense of community". And that's good, from a results perspective. Because only 52% were satisfied with the social or community aspects of the farm, and only 76% were satisfied with the variety/mix of produce. So many people aren't happy with their selection, but that's ok, because selection wasn't one of their primary factors for joining!

In general, this would lead one to believe that most CSA shareholders are generally satisfied with their experience. This seems to be true. But it's not without its drawbacks. Those satisfaction numbers decrease steadily for members who have participated for 1-5 years, and while they generally remain above 75% for current members, the average 5-year retention rate of farms surveyed was only 28.6%, suggesting that even when very satisfied, consumers find reasons not to continue participation. To that point, The Leopold Center wrote, in their summation:

"... members tire of the responsibility of storing and preparing an abundance of produce each week; they feel guilty when it goes to waste. Unfamiliar vegetables and preparation requirements challenge them; they wistfully recall the days of freely choosing items, in the amounts they wanted, from the grocery store aisle."

Given the diversity of CSA participants, this is not an unexpected scenario. But what of the farmers? There are considerably fewer of them than the shareholders, and what do they think of the CSA experience? Well, the conclusion reached from the consensus of farmers is more damning:

"For the farmers, the situation may be that they do not pay themselves a living wage and feel overworked and underappreciated [sic] and must rely on volunteers and underpaid interns. There is no ‘community’ of shared responsibility and partnership. Both farmers and members feel unfairly treated. Here, the market-based relationships of CSA have overshadowed the philosophical orientation of the concept."

So, why would they do it? What incentive would farmers who are having to go far beyond the normal bounds of market production have to continue doing so?

Well, the dream of money, for one. The average net return on an arable acre under a CSA scenario was $2,466.50 -- compared to the per-acre return for corn ($172.11), soybeans ($134,46) and wheat ($38.10). [2]

One would expect, from this summation, that CSA farmers are rolling in the cash. But here, again, they are frequently victims of their own best intentions. Oberholtzer found that most CSA farmers "have a strong environmental ethic, and believe that organic production is an important component of CSA farming". But the very next sentence gives evidence to where reality is setting in:

"One farmer noted, however, that the environmental aspect of CSA became too much of a factor in running the CSA, “so much so that [he] threw a blind eye to the economics and lost a lot of money over a 4-year period.”"

Ideology trumping reason. In fact, only 43% of CSA farmers surveyed felt that they were receiving a fair wage. Overall, 88% of CSA farmers were "not completely satisfied" with their experience, with 48% citing a high workload, and 35% citing low wages as the primary cause of their dissatisfaction.

It's inarguable that participating in a CSA allows farmers to potentially reap more absolute revenue from their arable acreage. But the idealism that comes attached to that participation results in longer hours, higher costs, and an experience that only 12% of CSA farmers are completely satisfied with.

... and they're doing it while driving down the overall productivity of American farmland, and driving up costs to the American consumer, without any appreciable benefit to themselves. CSAs are rapidly becoming inefficiency incarnate.

** Addressing Food Disparity in urban areas

One of the large social motivators for CSAs and other community agriculture programs, like Cleveland's City Fresh, has been the premise that fresh produce and other healthy foods are underutilized in low-income areas. While that is provably the case, the reasons behind it are worthy of investigation. It may be that by focusing on agriculture programs that boost diverse crops in urban areas, we're fixing the wrong problem.

Investigation of the "grocery gap" in most published literature tends to degenerate into finger-pointing at the traditional bugaboos of urban policy. An analysis written only a month ago in the journal Ecology Law Currents [5] delves into a condemnation of fast food, liquor stores, Wal*Mart, grocery store chains and "Los Angeles' car culture" before it ever speaks a word about sourcing and distribution of produce.

Then, after a mere 10 paragraphs on increasing grocery presence in the inner-city, and funding distribution of fresh groceries to corner stores, it returns to summarize its findings in a call for a moratorium on fast food restaurants and better nutrition labeling in restaurants.

(It's a different rant, but I'll briefly point out that America has become fatter, lazier and generally less interested in what they cram into their bloated bodies SINCE 1968, which is when the first nutritional facts labels started appearing on products, and has certainly only accelerated since the 1990 Nutrition Labeling and Education Act. If there has ever been a red herring for America's food problems, labeling must be it. Those most likely to benefit from the information are, far and away, the least likely to actually read it.)

In a 2008 report from the Center for Food and Justice [6], researchers identified the barriers to greater fresh produce consumption by residents in the inner-city of LA. The top 5 barriers were:

1) Inadequate kitchen facilities
2) Limited cooking skills
3) High labor costs
4) Limited labor availability
5) Inadequate storage facilities

Well! Of those 5, how many of them have ANYTHING to do with farming, food distribution, or availability? Zero. In fact, you have to travel down the list to #9 to find "High Price Points", #12 for "Managing Multiple farm accounts", and #14 for "Reliance on rebates and incentives from processed food providers."

Responding to social demand, and market need, processed food manufacturers and distributors have been reaching out to try and increase distribution through the existing networks, and have been largely unsuccessful. But, it's not really sounding like it's the food production and/or distribution systems that are the problem.

But there is a beautiful gem buried on Page 10 of the report. Under the heading of "Additional Challenges to Implementing Local Food Distribution Models", we find the following:

"Exhausted Supply - Farmers have recently begun to diversify their direct markets through farmers’ markets,
Community Support Agriculture (CSA) subscriptions, and other direct wholesale and retail relationships. Many farms are making a good profit through these niche markets. In fact, they have chosen to focus on direct markets, instead of wholesale markets, because they are more lucrative. As a result, many small farmers with experience selling directly to dedicated consumers already have customers for a portion of their current production."

Read that again. The Center for Food and Justice is actually blaming the rise of CSAs as the #1 auxilliary challenge to achieving effective locally-sourced food distribution in the inner city.

In fact, in over a dozen articles and/or papers that I've read in the last ~3 weeks on the subject, not a single one blames "lack of production" as even a top-10 barrier to effective fresh food distribution in urban areas. ALL of them, however, point out that those products are not available at a cost that is attractive to the local residents, and that even when obtained, many local residents are ineffective at using them.

Which brings us to...

** Utilization efficiency of fresh produce

I conducted my own survey this week. I went down to the Dave's supermarket on Payne Avenue and 33rd Street, which I think could fairly be considered a pretty darned urban neighborhood. Within 2 blocks of the market, there are stops for 9 separate RTA bus lines, one of which is even a loop line that covers most of the Lexington/Hough neighborhood area.

Inside, the produce section was at least as good as the one at my neighborhood Giant Eagle, and arguably better than the small Heinen's we have out here. In addition to the typical produce selections, they had eggplants, several types of hard squashes, fresh cherries, beautiful pickling cucumbers, hot peppers, and a great selection of fruits. They have a sign up talking about how they buy from local farms, and how their fruit was from "Bauman Orchards" near Akron.

Prices were comparable to what they are in the suburbs. If anything, the cherries were less expensive, since Giant Eagle loves ripping consumers off on fresh, highly-seasonal products.

Within 4 blocks of the market are 4 additional Asian grocery stores, all with fresh produce sections, some even more extensive than Dave's. There are also, I counted, at least 12 "corner store" type outlets. I went into two -- one sold basic produce. One did not. Prices were actually cheaper than Dave's, though quality definitely wasn't as good.

Driving through some of the less-deadly neighborhoods on a rambling trip home, I confirmed similar distribution in other highly-urban neighborhoods. There's another Dave's at East 40th and Woodland, Home Town Grocery at E55th and Woodland, a couple of Save-a-Lot stores, and a slough of independent stores all throughout the area. (And for reference, I don't have any need to ever drive down past East 55th and Broadway again.)

I'm not going to speak for Los Angeles or New York or Detroit. But I can fairly unequivocally state that whatever the problems with urban food accessibility in urban Cleveland, availability and accessibility are not among them. The sheer amount of produce that must age, rot and be thrown away from the massive number of neighborhood distribution points, is staggering.

This lends some credence to the CFJ's theory that the biggest two problems are:
1) Inadequate kitchen facilities
2) Limited cooking skills

So what is an outfit like City Fresh doing to address the core problems? Well, if you talk about the problems above - very little. They do provide nutrition education, and they provide assistance for urban gardens. Both of those are of debatable importance in this arena, from everything I've read... Nutrition Education is important, but ultimately the decision people make about what foods to consume boil down to culture and economics -- even when they KNOW better. Urban gardens are good for community building, skills training and other urban policy initiatives, but have almost zero measurable impact on overall distribution or consumption practices.

In fact, City Fresh is merely one of the projects of the New Agrarian Center: a social policy program founded by Oberlin College, whose other programs include constructing prototype buildings out of straw bales and converting spent oil to biodiesel with a bicycle-powered converter. Most of their policy papers are the product of a small number of faculty and undergraduate students. Take, for instance, the groundbreaking Policy Brief on "Community Food Systems" [7] which was based on a convocation speech by Michael Pollan, and noted that the available grocery stores in Oberlin were insufficient because 14% of the population relied on food stamps, and making it to the local IGA was difficult because "walking can be frustrating."

Brilliant policy publication New Agrarian Center! Take that one to Tanzania and see how far the thesis flies, I dare you...

In fact, almost all of the City Fresh and NAC publications relating to problems in Northeast Ohio have to do with transportation for residents to distribution points -- NOT with distribution, production or availability problems. Their own analysis of their distribution points indicates that more may be necessary, specifically because the average inner-city resident in Cleveland must travel 3-4 times as far to reach a City Fresh distribution point than they would to reach a "non-organic retail outlet" offering the same products. Though they then denigrate the non-organic product as somehow inferior, ignoring the fact that the issue is boosting produce consumption of ANY variety in the inner-city, organic or otherwise.

Perhaps the most telling item for their cause, however, comes in the conclusions of their 2002 "Regional Food System Assessment for Northeast Ohio" [8], the document which formed their operational basis, and upon which they draw most of their public policy positions to this day. Under "Conclusions for Demand Side Development", they state:

"In the case of Oberlin, activism and a commitment to a social ideology grounded in ecological sustainability helped to spawn the formation of new markets for locally grown food." "But it is clear that the broader ideals ... can best be served by improving regional food processing and distribution infrastructure that increases the accessibility of local food to more interested and enlightened consumers."

They are, outright, stating that while their efforts will not have a direct effect on the problems facing Northeast Ohio, they hope to grow the market for local organic farmers by appealing to "enlightened consumers". Translation: We may not be achieving our goals, but we're going to stick to our story, preach to the choir, and keep collecting as much revenue as we can so that the ideals can still be supported while we try to figure out what to do next.

Meanwhile, all they're really accomplishing is the expansion of yet another ill-devised welfare program in the inner-cities. Ohio taxes residents to fund the Direction Card food stamp program. Retailers buy product eligible for sale under that program. City Fresh over-charges suburban "enlightened consumers" and uses the proceeds to lower the retail price of produce below the cost of goods, and then still accepts the Direction Card to pay the artificially-lowered price. The end result? Everybody's costs go up. Perhaps imperceptibly, given the size of the program, but it's yet another inefficiency borne in a system whose largest current need is greater efficiency.

By their own admission, you're trading cash for ideology. Read their publications! I know they're long-winded... (sort of like my own?) BELIEVE me, I know they're long-winded because I read them. But if you want to know who these people really are, there's no better reference than their own publications. And whatever socially-positive side effects their efforts might have in the region, to say that City Fresh's underpinning parent organization is anything other than an agenda-driven think-tank requires spectacular imagination and unwarranted credit.

** The end?

Is the CSA doomed? Far from it -- in fact, all indications are that the CSA is destined for even greater success. Converting fields of soybeans into polyculture CSA land is not only hip and trendy, amongst today's ecologically-minded, but it's profitable, reaping as much as 20x the revenue per arable acre of land.

But a shakeout in this market is probably coming. CSAs are no longer the pioneering experiments that they were a decade ago. With more than 12,000 CSA farms nationwide, and growing, multiple things will inevitably occur due solely to market forces:

1) Cost of produce and agriculturally-derived goods will increase. Less land growing soybeans and corn mean higher prices for soybeans and corn -- and each of the billion products derived from them. Meanwhile, fewer prime produce items going directly into the distribution chain in favor of "share-based" sales will increase the cost of produce in the primary distribution chain. If agricultural production is good, this trend will continue. In the next major drought or crop failure year, the piper will want to be paid -- share-based consumers will still be out the same amount of cash for much less product, and the distribution chain that would normally back that up will be drastically more expensive to participate in. Expect the wailing to be loud and strident.

2) CSA competition will increase. Consumers dissatisfied with one local growers' cooperative can move to another in a way they could not until now. This will put downward pressure on share prices, thereby making farming less profitable for the CSA farmers.

3) Idealism-based farming practices will change. Actual on-farm volunteerism is hovering at less than 10% of actual shareholders surveyed, effectively nailing down the coffin lid on the whole community-participation aspect of most current CSAs. Because, by their own admission, farmers can't stick strictly to the ideals of CSA farming and make money, downward price pressure will force them to eventually cut their losses and plant fewer varieties, or increase use of fertilizers, or otherwise start whittling away at the intellectual purity that many CSAs are currently founded upon. This will drive away certain "enlightened" consumers from that CSA, resulting in even less revenue. Lather, rinse, repeat until some equilibrium is reached.

Meanwhile, the current batch of peer-reviewed literature seems to be leaning towards the fact that locally-sourced goods are more of a trend than a solution. The fossil-fuel transportation argument is being re-examined in light of a new resurgence in train service, and increased fuel efficiency in fleets. The cost equation, too, is shifting such that moving calories around the country might not be as bad as it was once demonized to be. Cities are beginning to address the "grocery gap" problem with urban distribution, but those solutions aren't yielding the appropriate outcomes; produce rots on store shelves, while there's still a line around the block at the local McDonalds. Calorie-for-calorie many of these renewal efforts are resulting in even greater food inefficiency than ever before.

It's not the point of this rant to speculate on a solution. Like so many other things, the situation is complex, and will require a complex multi-faceted approach that involves much more than just food production and distribution. Entire urban cultures and planning practices may have to fundamentally change. In a system this complex, no matter how many laws you pass, the only one that will be strictly adhered to is the Law of Unintended Consequences.

However, in the case of CSAs, they seem destined to become little more than an idealogical dream for the segments of our society best able to afford them. Farmers like the increased income potential. Consumers have fallen in love with anything the word "organic" is attached to. Beyond that, the potential for it to be the panacea to public health is a point that objective science is beginning to abandon. Some urban policy centers even point at CSAs as an emerging detriment to their ability to source low-cost local produce into an accessible urban distribution chain.

But when has science stopped anything from becoming wildly popular, despite itself?

[1] - Bradford, JC. (2008) Energy Farms Network, Reliable Renewable Energy for a Post Carbon World: "Can My County Feed Itself? Part 3. The Available Land-base"

[2] - Tegtmeier, Erin & Duffy, Michael (2005) Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, "Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in the Midwest United States: A regional characterization"

[3] - US Department of Agriculture, "2007 Census of Agriculture - State Data", Table 44: Selected Practices, 2007.

[4] - Oberholtzer, Lydia (2004) Small Farm Success Project, "Community Supported Agriculture in the Mid-Atlantic Region: Results of a Shareholder Survey and Farmer Interviews"

[5] - Vallianatos, Mark (2009) Ecology Law Currents, "Food Justice and Food Retail in Los Angles"

[6] - Zajfen, Vanessa (2008) Occidental College, Urban & Environmental Policy Institute, Center for Food and Justice, "Fresh Food Distribution Models for the Greater Los Angeles Region"

[7] - Rubin, Sarah; Weinmann, Sophia; Williams, Laila (2009) Oberlin College, Food Access Group, "Community Food Systems"

[8] - Cleveland State University, Urban Studies Exit Project, "Regional food System Assessment for Northeast Ohio", 2002.

Creepy creepy CREEPY!!!!

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:24:35 GMT

It looks like I have to exonerate mokatz for his comments on my post regarding the rebranding of the Sci Fi Network. Unknown to me at the time, this past weekend was the annual furry convention in Pittsburgh.

Normally, I would refrain from commenting on such a gathering, particularly due to our... distressing... past encounters with furries IRL. But this is JUST TOO GOOD.

Apparently the reason that Pittsburgh is the spiritual home of this movement is because they even have their state legislators in on the action. 40-year-old Alan Berlin, a staffer to Senator Jane Orie, was arrested for propositioning a 15-year-old boy, suggesting that they dress up in animal costumes and have sex in his back yard, while the child's parents were asleep inside.

He's in prison on $250,000 bail.

Also making the news regarding the event was the fact that the Mets baseball team was housed in the same hotel as the gathering the night before a big game with the Pittsburgh Pirates. They blamed their performance on getting a miserable night's sleep thanks to being "freaked out" by their surroundings, and one of their pitchers being awoken in the middle of the night by "a couple of badgers going at it in the hallway." You just can't make this shit up...

So my apologies go to mokatz, whom I obliquely accused of being a little bit deviant for bringing up the topic -- and whose office is about a block away from Ground Zero for this event. And my sympathies to the other Pittsburghers who e-mailed me about their weekend (and thanks for the link to the story above).

I recommend that you send a stuffed pedobear to your state congressmen to express your thanks for their outpouring of support and involvement in this fine subculture, in your state. ;)

The Year of the Brand

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:01:00 GMT

2009 has been a lot of things to a lot of people -- most of them bad. But one thing that it is clearly becoming is the Year of the Brand. Every company fighting for an edge is trying to re-brand their image. Find that magical insight that will make people spend money in a down economy.

Frankly, it's getting a little bit funny.

We're barely halfway through the year, and already there are enough disasters out there that you really have to wonder what people are thinking. Clearly all of that expensive Marketing school learnin' doesn't prepare you to operate in a crisis situation.

Today, the long-venerated Sci Fi Channel is re-branding. As of this morning, they are now called SyFy. Their catchline is "Imagine Greater".

What?

Completely aside from the fact that I'm never going to be able to call it anything aside from "Siffy" again, and forgetting that its most pop-famous products are absolutely god-awful cult movies, such as this weekend's upcoming sure-to-be-classic "Sand Serpents", I have to wonder who thought this was a good idea. Only some marketing tool could possibly believe that this somehow increases the value of their brand.

The best that can be said is that at least they're not alone. Joining Siffy on the 2009 Wall of Shame are many old and respectable companies that ought to know better.

Like Tropicana, who briefly, earlier this year, decided to re-brand their classic Orange Juice product to make it look like a carton of bottom-shelf Food Club squeeze. What's wrong with Generic juice?? Nothing! If you're a communist... Apparently not many of them, because sales plummeted precipitously.

Or how about Microsoft's upcoming Windows 7, which failed to learn an important lesson from the Vista debacle, and is proceeding to launch with even MORE crippled sub-versions than it's ill-fated predecessor. Nothing like selling the consumer a car and then telling them that it'll be another $99 to make the "optional" airbags work properly. Proving once again that just because a tech company calls something a branded version, doesn't mean it's anything other than a feature scam.

US consumers might not have noticed, but overseas, the Quicker-Picker-Upper, Bounty, is no longer Bounty. It underwent a brand change this year to become "Plenty". Why? Who the hell knows, since the official party line is that the new name will focus consumers on the "incredible soaking power" of the towels. This was accompanied by a media blitz featuring two cross-dressing men and the slogan "only the name's changed."

Somewhere, Rosie is twisting in her grave... (If she's dead. I'm not sure.)

Branding is important to the marketplace. It gives consumers an artificial community to rally around. A sense that you've found something you can relate to, and build loyalty towards in exchange for a valued product or service. When done properly, a strong brand can be a company's largest asset.

Or it can be it's largest liability. I rather think that someone might have "imagined greater" than Siffy.

Mental Whiplash

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:32:35 GMT

I pride myself on being one of those people who can have temporally-distant friends. Meaning: I tend to hang out with the sort of people whom I can go YEARS without seeing, and then the next time we're together, pick up right where we left off. Being as generally spastic as I am in the rest of my life, this skill is pretty much the one thing that ensures I have any kind of social life whatsoever.

But there are times when this phenomenon derails. Times when an external factor is introduced that short-circuits my ability to behave as though no time at all has passed.

Kids.

For you locals, it's no big deal. I see you and your kids often enough that my mental image updates pretty regularly. They do grow up fast, but it's easy to take, even in discrete little jumps.

I got an e-mail today from someone who moved out of Cleveland in 1999, and who I've seen in person maybe 3 times since, and only once with his family. When they left, his daughter was going on 3 years old, and he didn't even HAVE a son yet. Now she's going on 13 and he's ~8. The family pictures he sent are of him, his wife, some teenager who looks like his wife, and some grade school boy that looks like him.

I know who they are, but my brain is busily trying to convince me that they're some alien replicants deposited into his family within the last 6 months. Because surely the toddling little girl I remember, who gave her Elmo to me one night while I was visiting, is not 13 years old!!!

Mental whiplash is a weird thing.

I'm going to have to re-evaluate how I approach long-distance friendships with parents. Today, I think I've realized that the rules of this game are not quite what I thought they were.

The science of envy

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:01:16 GMT

Ars Technica has an interesting article, entitled: Irrational Markets: People reject free money out of anger. It is a quick and cursory overview of a very interesting topic, and well worth the 5 minutes it takes to read.

Essentially, it gives an overview of some new papers released this week on Game Theory. While that sounds like something that might be more applicable to your Wii than the US Economy as a whole, it really isn't. In fact, Game Theory is perhaps one of the best fields of research to pursue if you want to understand why human societies behave the way they do.

In short, the article gives an overview of the classic Ultimatum Game. You give one person a stack of cash and tell them to divide it however they wish between themselves and one other person. If the other person accepts the offer, they both get to keep the money. If the other person rejects the offer, neither of them do. Not surprisingly, "unfair" offers are almost always rejected, even though accepting ANY offer would result in both parties walking away with FREE MONEY.

Sounds simple, right? We have an intrinsic want for fairness, even if punishing perceived greed is self-defeating. But how do we evaluate that difference?

Let's take, for instance, a fast food worker in San Francisco. If you work in an Arby's in San Fran, you're making a city minimum wage of $9.79 per hour. Let's say (for sake of argument) that the President of that company is making $350,000 per year.

Is it fair that a clerk makes $19,580 per year, while the president of the same company makes $350,000?

Depending on your idealogical leanings, you may answer that question differently. But let's break the question down further...

Is it fair that a clerk makes $9.79 per hour, while the head cook makes $12.73? That's a 30% wage increase going from the newbie to a major player in that restaurant. Most people would probably say that's fair. Or how about if the manager of that restaurant makes $33,000 per year? Ok... maybe that's fair too? That is, after all, a 30% pay raise from the cook.

Then you have 30% more going to the owner of that restaurant ($43,000). Then you have 30% more going to the franchisee who owns lots of restaurants in that area ($55,922). Then 30% to the District Manager who's responsible for all of the restaurants in San Fran ($72,699). Then 30% to the Regional Manager who oversees all of California ($94k). Then 30% to the National Manager, and 30% to the VP of Operations, and 30% to the COO and 30% to the CFO, and then 30% to the CEO... which is $350,905.

If you were at any step in that chain, getting a major promotion to the next level, 30% would seem pretty fair. You're taking on a lot more work, you're traveling, you're dealing with problems at all levels below you in the company, etc... From inside the system, each and every step you claw up seems pretty reasonable and fair.

Yet, if you say that a CEO makes $351k in salary annually, while his poor starving front-line employees are below the poverty level at $19,500... well, that's sounds terribly unfair.

This is of course a massive over-simplification of both the scenario and the problem. But it does illustrate that there are frequently perfectly rational reasons behind circumstances that we perceive as being irreparably skewed. Most of the time, we never bother to find out... because even when we understand the micro-detail, we still make snap judgments based on our perceptions of "the big picture" when confronted with a decision point.

Game Theory is one way to help sort through all of that. To figure out how we perceive the world, and to craft explanations and scenarios that help people make rational decisions based on framing of the available information.

Unfortunately, such powers can also be used for evil. And it seems, lately, that is being done more often than the reverse. When you look at everything going on in our government today -- the discussions on global warming "cap and trade", the discussion of health care, the bail-out packages. All are textbook cases of information saturation and game theory. Dump 1,300 pages of dense text on the desk of a Congressman, extract bits of "big picture" information from the summary and fill the rest with placeholders to be determined later. They're forcing an Ultimatum Game by removing the opportunity for rational examination. You have 30 seconds to make a decision that seems "fair". If you guess right, we all win. If you guess wrong, we all lose. Go! Last week the House voted in a climate bill that contains more placeholders than details, and it's pretty safe to say that not a single seated member of that esteemed body would have even had enough hours in the day to read all 1300 pages. Yet they voted anyway because they "had" to.

Under such a scenario, the actual detail and rational logic become meaningless. Health Care? How much focus is paid to the 259,798,799 Americans who currently have health insurance, as opposed to the 47 million who do not? When we bailed out the auto makers, who was looking out for the approximately 138,000,000 people who paid that bill, and was it fair in the face of the estimated 377,000 people who would have been directly affected by their collapse? (A 500:1 ratio.)

As our understanding of human perception and tribal instinct improves, it's being leveraged by everyone from magicians to high-level politicians. In the same way that Penn and Teller can make 1.2 million people annually believe that they've caught a bullet in their teeth, a politician can make 120 million people believe that they're being treated unfairly. Everyone's too busy watching the people in white shirts toss a basketball around to notice the gorilla walking through the room.

Sadly, understanding human perception and decision making doesn't change it. No matter how clearly we understand that you can't win at a game of Ball and Cups, we'll still try to follow the ball as the streetcorner huckster slides them around the table. No matter how much better off we'd be to just take the free $50 with no strings attached, we'll rail against the unfairness of it all when we know that someone else is getting $100. There's a few million years of cognitive evolution backing up that decision process.

So the best we can do is learn to recognize the swindle. Recognize when we're focusing on the wrong thing, and try to view situations from a different perspective. Standing on the corner trying to follow the ball is a useless exercise no matter how much you want to do it. It's time to train ourselves to start looking under the table.

Ohio

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:52:15 GMT

In 13,000 BC nomads walked the lands where Cleveland stands. Exhibiting the most forethought of any human-like peoples before or since, they kept moving. About 12,000 years later a group of indigenous people who had learned to survive on sunflowers and bitter local squash decided that they were too depressed to fight it anymore and put down roots for about two and a half millennium, building circular mounded earthworks with no obvious entrance or exit, thereby signifying how trapped they felt by their surroundings. They disappeared without a trace, and none of the other indigenous peoples in more cosmopolitan places like New York or Alabama seemed to notice or care.

During the 18th century the French set up trade routes through the area to trap fur, but since one can only make so many coats out of ratty squirrels and mange-infested groundhogs, they staged a war in 1754 with the Brits. After a decade or so of watching the redcoats catch footrot in the swamp forests, they rolled over like a bunch of whipped female lapdogs, and told the Queen she could take this place and shove it up her exquisitely polished arse.

When the United States was founded in 1776, they named this area the "Western Reserve", because it was in the west and they were just going to reserve judgment on what to do with the place. Slavery was deemed to be illegal here, because there are some places that even slaves shouldn't be forced to live. Several towns were founded around 1800, all of which hugged the borders with Pennsylvania or even West Virginia, because those were the areas deemed most suitable for supporting life. As their populations grew, penniless settlers grudgingly slogged their way north settling towns like Greenville and Chippewa, both of which sank into the swamps at least once.

In 1786, Moses Cleaveland led a team of surveyors to the area, and founded the town that would forever bear his name. Almost -- because a printer's error on the declaration document dropped the 'a' from the town's name, and good 'ole Moses was too illiterate to notice. Most of the survey team returned to Connecticut with wild tales of festering mudholes and rabid howler monkeys in the area, along with whirlpools and snake-haired sirens who led the first mariners of Lake Erie to their doom. Those men were committed to a friary near Boston for their own protection, but many escaped and returned to the area with the fevered intention of converting the evil monkeys to Christianity. While that effort failed, their ramshackle churches remain on nearly every block, and the vast majority of the area's residents continue to visit them weekly to this day, in futile efforts to keep the harpies away.

As life sciences and man's knowledge of meteorology grew, it became evident that Cleveland had two seasons: Mosquito Season and a primary season the forecasters of the time called "Ye Fucking Batshit Cold Tyme". As few people ventured out in the Cold Tyme, and few people ventured out in the Mosquito Season, in 1854 some rich dugongs from Pittsburgh started shipping iron and coal into the area to smelt into steel, on the theory that nobody would probably notice. When nobody did, the oil and automotive magnates from Marathon, Peerless, People's, Jordon Wintow, Standard and others, started building even more volatile processing plants in the region, dumping their foul effluent into the river. Still, it would be almost 100 years before anybody noticed this, and then only by accident when the sparks from a flintlock revolver (with which an area man was taking his own life) fell onto the surface of the "water".

Throughout the 1950's and 1960's Cleveland's fame grew, serving as the actual inspiration for the naming of such hip, modern American trends as "white flight" and "urban sprawl". Not to be outdone in the national media by "The Big Apple" and "The Windy City", Cleveland adopted the moniker of "The Mistake on the Lake". So dubbed, in 1978, the city became the first town in America to ever fall into default, under the watchful eye of Mayor Dennis Kucinich; a feat so unparalleled in American history, that the awed residents elevated Sir Dennis to the post of US Representative, and occasionally back major runs at the White House.

Cleveland enjoys top billing on the US's ranking of most impoverished cities, and while it is only the 7th most dangerous US city in the national crime rankings, it is observed to be straining with all its might to someday be Number One. Thanks to a unique urban renewal experiment by the CIA, crack cocaine is inexpensive and widely available in Cleveland, which leads to remarkable numbers for the city in areas such as education statistics and the number of lavish and mandatory all-expense-paid "staycations" enjoyed by minority residents in the city's exceptional live-in facilities.

Starting in 1991, the NAACP determined that teachers weren't trying hard enough, nor were racist administrators providing enough busing, to educate the growing number of poor students in the area. So in 1994 they sued the state to eliminate mandatory standardized testing, on the well-reasoned theory advanced by Schrödinger on Quantum States, which posits that if we do not measure the stupidity of a child, it will not exist. Thanks to their timely intervention and focus on the key problem, graduation rates from Cleveland Public Schools advanced to 26.6% by 1996.

In the ensuing decade, a Great and Powerful Board of County Administrators set forth an ambitious plan to build a new Convention Center that nobody will use, to replace the old Convention Center that nobody uses. The center would be located ideally somewhere that would provide the highest cost of developing superfund-tainted and reclaimed land, while strategically avoiding anywhere that non-Clevelanders might like to visit. To further increase its value, a "Medical Mart" would be attached, displaying many fine creations of the medical equipment industry -- because time has proven that if there's one thing Clevelanders truly excel at, it's getting sick and dying. To make true this halcyon dream, Cleveland now enjoys the second highest municipal sales tax rate in America, but again, can be seen striving with all its heart to someday be Number One.

Awash in this tide of new money for urban development, the State wisely determined in 2009 that funding for libraries and other public education services would be cut by as much as 50%. A rational decision in light of their near-contemporary decisions to increase funding for research of Lake Erie island snakes by 15%, and grant new funding to allow convicted felons to get DNA tests. Experts assume that this may well have a noticeable effect on the aforementioned ~30% high school graduation rate. Meanwhile, industry has ground to a halt; some theorize as a result of the inability to move goods into or out of the area due to increased Siren activity snatching mariners just outside of Cleveland's only port.

Clearly it is time for a change. We need money to fight the sirens, build a Convention Center, and investigate why poor black children can't get bussed to the right school.

And that's why we need gambling. Right Ted Strickland?

A collapse of confidence

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:53:21 GMT

I've been diligently avoiding making posts lately about politics, economics or business. Perhaps the biggest reason for this is that, lately, I feel like I know almost zero about any of them. Anything predictable by my particular brand of common sense has gone straight out the window, and for the first time in at least the last decade, I feel like I'm walking around blindfolded to the future. This would not normally be a big deal, except that in talking to other young businesspeople locally, it seems I'm far from alone. We're all watching business dry up and fellow companies fold. We see non-profits struggling to make payroll much less engage in philanthropy, and we wonder what's going to give.

I have made posts in the past about Zimbabwe, and the mismanagement and hyperinflation that brought the southern African nation to its knees, from its once-lofty perch as the "Breadbasket of Africa." While the USA is hardly playing catch-up with Zimbabwe, it's distressing that a number of news articles have started popping up, comparing the US situation with the former economy of that nation -- even if their thesis is that No, we're not anywhere near that yet. The fact that we can even draw those comparisons for the purpose of disputing them is shocking, and should serve as a warning of where one fork of the road we're on can lead.

Sadly, the one thing I am still 100% sure of is that perception is reality. And amongst the US business community, it's not what's actually going on, it's what they believe is going on that matters. Because that's what decisions are based on.

In past down-turns, we reach a point where every business owner starts jockeying for position for the recovery. Balance sheets are examined, decisions are made on how many employees can be hired and how much infrastructure can be improved. How long can the company carry a loss to position itself to be ahead of the competition when the recovery finally hits and consumers or fellow businesses start spending money again? It's a cyclical tightrope, and some win and some lose in the transaction.

This time, it's different. The US dollar is falling again. Healthcare costs are rapidly inflating -- linked not un-coincidentally to the ongoing rise in malpractice insurance rates and other lawsuit-related costs. The government is spending like a drunken sailor in port, and the historical outcome of that is skyrocketing interest rates necessary to soak up the excess money supply -- don't forget that Jimmy Carter's 21% interest has happened in our lifetime. New and exotic taxes are being discussed openly in the halls of Congress and in the media.

It's thrown the formula out of whack. One colleague of mine desperately wants to expand his hosting service and hire a couple of new sysadmins to steal work from foundering companies. But all of the trade press he's reading say that Internet and tech services companies -- one of the last great un-taxed frontiers -- are on the chopping block for major new taxation, possibly within the next year. His employee health care, like my own, went up by 18% this year. Talk of additional fees on businesses to cover Universal Health Care, in addition to our employees' care costs, loom large over all small business. The adjustable rate mortgage on his condo-style telco hosting center rose this year for the first time, and he has to either refinance (at significant cost) or pray that interest rates don't spike, or the mortgage payment alone could put him out of business.

Other than the mortgage bit (since my company leases space), I understand all of those concerns. It's not an issue right now of "can I expand to be ready for the recovery." It's "can I survive this wave of expensive new bullshit rushing straight at my head?"

Now expand that by about 10,000 times and apply it upwards to, say, senior executives at a major national food company. They're not in finance, and they're not in automobile manufacturing. And yet they look at what's going on under the new Administration, and saying to themselves: "So we make food, and people need to eat. We're one of the top-10 manufacturers in the nation. If the economic situation continues to stagnate, are we looking at price controls or restrictions on how we source product or do business?" Nobody knows that answer, so they're taking the prudent route and stockpiling resources. They're cutting un-profitable products and the employees that run them, and not staffing up to ANY excess capacity in any department.

This is not a hypothetical -- it's a conversation I had about a month ago on a conference call with a VP-level executive.

In the end, this all boils down to fear. Fear of the unknown, no small amount of fear of the known, and uncertainty of what tomorrow will bring. It bears repeating that businesses aren't some magical money pots that vomit forth jobs and cash into the economy -- they're just collections of consumers working towards a common goal, and when consumers are scared, businesses are scared. Right now, small businesses are petrified, and large businesses are hoarding cash like dragons because they have no idea whether even their size will protect them from a sustained downturn in an inflationary economy.

As a consumer, I understand the desire to look at the examples of greed, excess and malfeasance in the business community, and clamor for greater oversight. I do it too -- the "evil empire" of Microsoft, the military industrial complex of Cargill and ADM. The problem with interventionist economies, however, is that you can't just stop there with the big "evil" companies. Venezuela is a fine example of the phenomenon... they nationalized their petroleum industry, but then all of the companies that serviced or bought from the petroleum industry reacted to protect their interests, so Chavez had to nationalize them too. When the currency started tanking, he had to implement price controls on consumer goods. Then there were shortages, so he had to nationalize the dairies and other food companies to keep enough food on the shelves to feed the population. It's a never-ending chain of damage control once you go down that route.

Whether that happens in the USA or not is irrelevant. The drivers of our nation's economy see the potential for it to happen, and are taking steps to protect themselves. So we end up with many of the end-effects of that scenario well before it has even started to occur. And with GM, Chrysler, the banks, and all the talk on Health Care, it very much has started to occur. 21% interest is not a madman's fever-dream at this point, given that soaking up this year's sale of $3.25 trillion in Treasury debt would all by itself require rates higher than during the Carter years.

Sadly, this is something I (and others) did see coming to some degree. It's where we go from here where things are a bit murky. We spent the stimulus money, and unemployment has continued to skyrocket to near all-time highs. We increased unemployment benefits, and now the slightly increased benefits have the unintended consequence of families becoming ineligible for food stamps and other assistance. We bail out companies, and they go bankrupt anyhow.

It has to end. We cannot start the climb until we bottom out as a nation. These incessant and futile attempts to protect people from the consequences of their own actions merely delay those consequences until they are larger and worse. We need to restore confidence. We need to make people believe that the economy works, and that they control even some small part of their destiny again.

Rather than layoffs, I know of at least two jobs that would be available if the business owners weren't too scared out of their own heads to hire for them, over what changes our leadership might bring to their doorstep. Not to mention the spots I myself would probably be trying to staff-up if my clients weren't still desperately cutting to try and protect themselves. That alone should be all we need to know about the state of the economy. Sad, but unavoidably true.

It's not easy red-penning the universe.

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:22:14 GMT

It's no big secret that I am a compulsive proofreader. A Grammar Nazi. He Who Worships The Webster. Call it what you will.

In 2009, it's not easy being this particular shade of green, because it seems that any word or construct can be made correct simply by declaring it so. Get 10 people on the Internet to agree with you, and voila! Ain't nunna them mades up words aren't good now.

Today's study: Shorty.

For time immemorial, "shorty" was a mildly derogatory word for someone who was short. When I was in college, the expanding lexicon of engineering meant that a shorty was a 1-2' long piece of network cable used to jumper across devices in a server room.

Sometime in the mid 1990's, Shorty acquired a new urban meaning. It referred to a youngster, getting his start out in the 'hood, dealing drugs and pimping for the first time. Trend-setting rapper NaS defined the word in context in his single "One Love":

"Shorty's laugh was cold blooded as he spoke so foul. Only twelve, trying to tell me that he liked my style."

A wash of other references followed, representin' how we got to protect the Shorties so they grow up respectin'.

No problem. Street slang evolves like any other language, so I just went with this. In my brain, the first popular definition of Shorty went from being a small bit of wire to being a hard-core pre-teen with a gun. Once again, the l33t-speaking world was at peace.

Two weeks ago, we were listening to the radio in our rental car, and a dance song came on the XM radio station we were listening to. The lyrics would haunt me to this day:

"Somebody call 911. Shorty fire burning on the dance floor, Whoa. I gotta cool it down... That little shorty fire's burning on the dance floor." ~Sean Kingston (slightly inaccurate excerpt)

Thinking that I was at least moderately up-to-date on dance party slang, the first thing that came into my head was "Jesus!! They wrote a song about torching some little punk-assed kid in a club?!" I have to point out that this was a crappy sound system, the windows were down, and most of the lyrics other than the start of the refrain were pretty much unintelligible.

I was really confused as to what the hell this song could possibly have meant. What had we come to, as a society, when our pop music involves lighting drug dealers on fire while the rest of the club dances on??

Turns out that in the span of a few short years, the word "Shorty" has been utterly and completely redefined again. NOW, Shorty means:

1) Your girlfriend, or a girl that you date or go out with.
2) One of your closest female friends, someone that you hang out with a lot.
3) An attractive girl that you want to meet.

Usage: "Hey, look at the ass on that Shorty over there. That Shorty's on fire."

How have we gone from "punk assed little kid smacking up the ho" to "smokin hot female" in just a couple of years?? I call shenanigans. Even street slang shouldn't evolve that quickly, and particularly not to mean something almost diametrically opposite to the original meaning.

Attention all hot chicks: You are not shorties unless you're selling drugs and talking smack to the gangbangers who are chronologically older than you. You are a "hottie". Or, if you spend more than 50% of your leisure time in a club, a "Club Rat".

Grammar Nazi has spoken.

The Naked Truth

Mon, 18 May 2009 17:13:19 GMT

Making the news today, we have a bunch of prudes at the "Electronic Privacy Information Center" trying to whip up support for their crusade against millimeter-wave scanning at US airports.

In general, this is not a particularly thrilling news item. But I feel the need to post it here in the hopes that my retort will also "go viral", and that enough clear-thinking reasonable people will tell Lillie Coney and her crew precisely where to shove their objections.

If you've not yet had the opportunity to go through one of these machines, let me just say that it's a frequent traveler's dream come true. You walk into a clear plexiglas chamber, put your arms out in front of you, stand still for about 3 seconds, and you're off and on your way. No beeping because of pennies in your pocket. No going back-and-forth through the metal detector. No taking your freaking shoes off! If you're flagged as a threat for having something show up on your person, you're shunted off into a secondary inspection area. I have never personally seen that occur (yet).

Now, to Ms. Coney's objections, as it turns out I actually know someone who works on these machines at one of our National Laboratories, writing the software that does the image analysis. He shared with me an anecdote on why these fears are unfounded.

Because the scans penetrate _everything_ down to human skin, the images are featureless. No hair, no eyebrows, no external characteristics whatsoever. They did a test where they took images of 8 people of comparable height, printed them out, and showed the images to another group of people, while the original 8 stood against the wall in a lineup.

Nobody in the room could figure out who's scan was who's.

This makes sense because research on human facial recognition has proven time and time again that you only need to modify a few small details about a face for it to be completely unrecognizable. [One such study by MIT - PDF Document]. Show a picture of Winona Rider without her eyebrows, and better than 90% of test subjects will be unable to identify her.

So the argument that TSA screeners in a remote room at LAX will be taking pictures of scans of celebrities and posting them on the Internet is the height of fearmongering. Even if they did post the body scans, it would be cognitively impossible to actually identify them as such. You'd have just as much luck posting MY body scan online and calling it Hugh Jackman...

Do you see genitalia? *gasp!* Yes, you do. As a featureless outline in 2D. You'll see more lascivious depictions of genitalia by going to Miami Beach any day of the week. In fact, if I have to look at the cocks of strangers I'd rather it be pixellated and featureless, than live, in-person, and straining through a banana hammock at my neighborhood pool!

The millimeter-wave technology is quite possibly the best thing to hit the market, in this crazy, paranoid, security-delusional post-9/11 world we live in. Finally a technology that satisfies the government's craving for material security, coupled with a traveler's craving for just getting onto the freaking plane in the smallest possible amount of time!

ACLU and EPIC, sit down, shut up, and don't screw this up for the rest of us! Just because you're embarrassed enough to hide in your closet if anyone even mentions the outline of a nipple, doesn't mean that the 2 billion people who travel annually are that prudish. Particularly when the most lascivious thing that might be seen is more akin to a teenagers' view through the old cable scrambling on the Spice channel. And doubly so when the only person who sees it is a bored TSA agent who isn't even in the same building as you!

How some people stretch to find any excuse to go on a crusade.

Honey, what's that on the corner... KABOOM

Sat, 16 May 2009 03:30:33 GMT

In this era of air conditioning and cable TV, I have often lamented how most people don't know their neighbors these days. Generally, it takes one of two things for people to meet those who live near them:

1) The fall of civilization -- I met most of my neighbors in my old apartment complex during the Great Power Outage of 2003.

2) Fear.

It is the latter that introduced me to a few of my neighbors tonight. Now, since one of my pet peeves is people who don't know their neighbors, I met most of my neighbors years ago. But that has its limits... I don't know the people who live two blocks away.

Two blocks away, the Westlake police responded to a domestic dispute, which turned into a bomb squad deployment.

As we came home from the Case Reunion banquet this evening, the street was barricaded by police and fire engines. Most of the residents of that street were milling aimlessly around on the corner. A few younger kids were standing near the stop sign, so I rolled down my window to ask what was going on. Combined with stories from other passersby, a story of terror emerged:

Chapter 1) Chick fight!! A domestic dispute involving two females transpired on the front lawn of the house.

Chapter 2) Call in the fuzz. Police are summoned to the home. (According to reports, police have been summoned to said home 37 times since 2004... who knew?!?)

Chapter 3) Absurd Officiousness. Without explanation, police blockade the street and evacuate residents on the block. "We can't tell you what's going on", said the coppers. "Well," say the residents, "if you won't tell us, we will..."

Chapter 4) Alert the media! One neighbor figures out that if the police won't talk, it's time to call in the professional naggers. All 4 major news networks are alerted. All 4 arrive on the scene.

Chapter 5) The scoop at 11. Making deadlines for the evening news, the reporters allow neighborhood residents to listen in as they phone the story back to the studios. "8 explosive devices the size of a softball, 1 pipe bomb, and drug paraphernalia were removed from the home. 1 adult female arrested on drug charges."

Chapter 6) Order is Officially Restored - Meet thy neighbors. Basking in the official comfort brought about by the Westshore special unit fulfilling their duties as operatives, relieved neighbors mill around aimlessly talking to each other. "Wow," said we all... "who'd have thought something like this would happen in our neighborhood." Then we go back to our air conditioning and cable TVs, secure in the fact that the neighborhood is a nice place to live once again. Right?

Mad props go to exilejedi and aquamindy for opening up their house to the neighbors, and putting Winnie the Pooh on the big screen for the neighborhood toddlers, who would otherwise be stuck outside on the corner. The tasty liquid refreshments weren't bad either...

I met a few people whom, honestly, I'm unlikely to see much of ever again. But it's always good to know your neighbors. Because it's always those weird ones you don't know who turn out to be the bomb-building, wife-beating drug addicts. It just goes to show that no matter how nice you think your neighborhood is, there's always something that will surprise you. Time to watch a little less TV, and wander a bit further afield during our summertime walks.

And I guess I'd better stop cooking meth in my basement and beating gieves. Don't want to be that guy, ya know??