Of course, my ox is relatively ungored...[Re-post from 2006]

Elitist whiners decrying "sprawl" have met their debating match in Robert Bruegmann, an art historian from the University of Chicago. Far from being the blight harrumphers continuously claim, sprawl is a rational response of people who finally get a chance to choose.

If history is any guide, the current revolt of the "sensitive minority" against sprawl will soon seem a quaint product of a bygone era. Highbrow critics loudly castigated the landscape created by "vulgar masses" fed by "greedy speculators" in cookie-cutter postwar American suburbs like Daly City, California. But now that their landscapes have matured and their original plastic-shaded floor lamps have become collectible, many of these vintage neighborhoods have become trendy. In like manner, as hard as it is to imagine today, by the time the landscape around the now-treeless subdivisions of look-alike stucco boxes at the edge of suburban Las Vegas fully matures, these subdivisions will likely be candidates for historic landmark designation. Most urban change, no matter how wrenching for one generation, tends to be the accepted norm of the next, and the cherished heritage of the one after that. [emphasis mine]

Bruegmann's excellent book "Sprawl "will be reviewed in an upcoming Top Producer, but this essay from The American Enterprise magazine encapsulates many of his key arguments, such as:

Another misunderstanding grows out of the provincialism of critics living in fast-growing urban areas. Many such people have the impression that the entire country is fast being paved over. But in truth, cities and suburbs occupy only a small percentage of our country's land. The entire urban and suburban population of the United States could fit comfortably into Wisconsin at suburban densities. Moreover, the amount of land set aside permanently for parks and wildlife areas has grown faster than urban land. [emphasis mine - I love to emphasize]

The issue also contains another thoughtful interview on urban planning as well.

One key for me in this never-ending debate is that despite near-universal agreement on the disagreeable nature of urban expansion, it continues unabated. Which usually means people are saying one thing and doing another.

Update: TP dropped the "Required Reading" page, so the full review is posted here on JWorld - On the Coffee Table.

This is your web on drugs...


Spiders coping with dangerous drugs, like oh, caffeine...

The spider on marijuana drifted off before finishing the job. The spider on benzedrine, an upper, worked energetically but without much planning. The spider dosed with chloral hydrate, a sedative, soon fell asleep.

To the surprise of Dr. Noever et al, caffeine did the most damage of all the substances tested. The spider dosed with it proved incapable of creating even a single organized cell, and its web showed no sign of the “hub and spokes” pattern fundamental to conventional web design.

What does the web of a caffeinated spider (which can hardly be accustomed to the jolt of a morning latte) have to do with human behavior? Unlikely as it sounds, it may be the most vivid illustration of caffeine’s disorienting effect on caffeine-sensitive people, many of whom may be misdiagnosed as mentally ill.

[Thanks, Jack]

A thought to warm you up on a cold day...

Wind chill is a crock.

Let "Otto" do it...

I am not a car person. No thrill attends their purchase or use. In fact, my current ride - a Pontiac Vibe - pretty well describes the driver, I think. Utilitarian, mildly efficient, totally not "hot".

I appreciate the engineering and design of vehicles which make driving a less challenging task, such as the automatic transmission. In fact, after buying one IH 1800 Tandem grain truck with an Allison, I refit my next grain truck with one. I know my mileage is less (albeit hard to tell in a grain truck), and braking must be done more thoughtfully without the ability to downshift, but the clutch doesn't wear out, anybody can learn to drive it in a day, and the transmissions have been bulletproof.

Driving manual transmissions is reliable humor premise here in the US - and a point of mild derision overseas. Still there are many whose X [correction I mean "Y"] -chromosome contains a gene for stick shifts.

It is unclear, at this point, which if any of these alternative technologies will gain more than a foothold in the market, and what their overall effect will be on the way Americans drive. One can imagine technologies such as the continuously variable transmission accelerating the eclipse of the stick shift, by maximizing driver ease while allowing greater efficiency than traditional automatics. Or, perhaps technologies like the dual-clutch transmission will spark new awareness of the benefits of active driver involvement in the subtleties of the car's performance. While I personally hope for the latter, I recognize that no one-size-fits-all solution is appropriate for the diverse situations and skill sets of American drivers.

Moreover, there is a broader question that the evolution of automobile transmissions raises about technology. Much science fiction and social commentary has evoked the idea that technology will make people passive and dependent, for example in a Star Trek episode where aliens have ceased to control or understand the machines their ancestors built. But the real history of technology shows a countervailing trend; people often prefer a hands-on approach, in areas ranging from blogging to amateur astronomy to home improvement. For some people, control and performance will remain priorities in choosing their cars, and for this reason I suspect the stick shift is not going to disappear anytime soon. [More]

It may be that the type of skill represented by the eye-hand-foot coordination required to drive a stick shift with panache is fading from our world to be replaced with eye-brain-finger coordination needed to build websites effortlessly, or program an RTK guidance machine, or set an insulin pump.

Different ages demand different skills. Few need to be able to drive a four-in-hand hitch anymore, for example. Which skills become the most admired and associated with coolness has always been a mystery, but one thing does seem clear.

The ability to find people as fascinated as you in some narrow field of expertise, to build a community, and to propagate the skill or art involved has never been as available as it is right now.

Who knows what stupendous things people will accomplish as more of us have a chance to find and exploit our intrinsic talents? Even if it's simply driving a stick.

Meanwhile, the rest of us can be freed from tasks we find awkward to pursue those arcane activities or studies. This is the gift of technology: time.

For cryin' out loud, don't give it away to the TV.

Personally, I think it is witches...

There is a major problem in the hives of America.

A mysterious disease is killing off U.S. honeybees, threatening to disrupt pollination of a range of crops and costing beekeepers hundreds of thousands of dollars, industry experts said on Monday. Beekeepers in 22 states have reported losses of up to 80 percent of their colonies in recent weeks, leaving many unable to rent the bees to farmers of crops such as almonds and, later in the year, apples and blueberries. [More]

This situation is bad news for beekeepers, of course, but in the absence of a defined cause, speculation runs rampant. It can be discouraging to read serious suggestions that one cause is "chemtrails". [see comments attached to this post]

Maybe I have been oblivious to current conspiracy theories, but this one was new to me. It seems the condensation vapors behind high flying jets have spooked some observers.

The chemtrail theory is a group of conspiracy theories regarding allegedly unnatural vapor trails purporting to hold 'chemicals.' They are said to be found behind certain aircraft (in certain places and at certain times), leaving behind the distinct trails thought to be laden with so-called 'chemicals.' Conversely, contrails are formed by condensation of water vapor in the aircraft's exhausts. Proponents of the theories maintain that some trails have an appearance and quality different from those of normal water-based contrails, i.e. that chemtrails are not consistent with the known properties of contrails. The general unifying factor is the generally conspiratorial belief that some kind of chemical or biological agent is being secretly released. The term "chemtrail" should not be confused with other forms of aerial dumping (e.g. crop dusting, cloud seeding or aerial firefighting). It specifically refers to systematic, high-altitude dumping of unknown substances for some undisclosed purpose resulting in the appearance of these supposed chemtrails. [More]

A significant portion of our populace is alienated by the very technology that makes our lives relatively indolent by historical standards. This is their right -albeit a singularly ungrateful response, IMHO.

Still, our deployment of scientific knowledge has been less than inspiring. I'm not sure it could be otherwise. Knowledge tends to outrun our judgment. The older I get, the more latitude I allow to those for whom comprehension of modern technology is both taxing and unrewarding.

Still, it is sobering to be reminded how far we have not traveled from superstition.

Nothing says "Happy Anniversary" like...



A new submarine!!!

What could possibly go wrong?

What do you want to be when you grow up?...

As for me, I wanna be a bubble artist.


More great photos here.

[via Neatorama]

Blurring the lines...

Back in the day, you knew who was on what side. Conservatives - especially evangelicals - were over here, and Birkenstock-wearing eco-loonies were over there. Not any more.

DALLAS — Texas' largest Baptist group is taking a rare step into environmental advocacy, working to block Gov. Rick Perry's plan to speed the approval process for 18 new coal-fired power plants.

The Christian Life Commission, the public policy arm of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, is mobilizing Baptists against the coal-fired plants and urging the convention's 2.3 million members to voice their opposition to state lawmakers.

"A lot of people felt like our industries, our policy leaders, are going to take care of these big issues like air quality, (and) it's not going to be something our local people are going to have to get up every day and worry about," said Suzii Paynter, director of the commission. "It can't be left to big interests to make these decisions in our behalf."

The Baptists stress that they are not jumping into full-blown activism, but even a small move toward environmentalism is significant. [More]

Nor is this an isolated example. Neither should we find it particularly surprising.

Indeed, the surprise isn’t that environmentalists and evangelicals might find common ground. It’s that we haven’t noticed how much common ground they’ve long shared. Evangelicalism and environmentalism are global movements of activists concerned about the salvation of the world through both social action and individual conversion. They also share that peculiar mix of cynicism about current social practices and optimism about transforming those practices through faith, reason and hard work that is found in all idealists.

The question both groups must take up is whether idealism is adequate to the task of addressing the problems of global warming, environmental degradation and species extinction. After all, whether any of us would use either label to describe ourselves, the vast majority of us think recycling is generally a good idea—though we’re still likely to throw that empty soda can into the trash. Our problem isn’t that we disagree with the goals of environmental health; it’s that our actions don’t necessarily lead toward achieving them. So if environmentalists and evangelicals really want to do something together, they might think less about convincing us about what we ought to do and more about motivating us to do it. [More]

Voting groups rarely stay put for any length of time. The collective action of millions of people is observed like poeple watching water vapor molecules in the sky. Look, we say, it's a pony. But minutes later it's a map of Florida.

Many who were firmly on the right are re-examining their beliefs. And many of us are shifting our vote on what is really, really important. This fluidity is what excites the media because if few ever changed their minds, what would be the point in persuasive prose?

The success of evangelical churches leads them to similar but not identical paths as older faith bodies. The issues of the world eventually have to be addressed - even those fraught with controversy. When pastors like Rick Warren lead believers to discuss our response as Christians to creation, he fulfilling the duties of all leaders: to confront the challenges they feel are most important to their followers.

This will not occur without cost. Already the evangelical movement is struggling with the politics of environmentalism. My guess is several leaders like James Dobson would just as soon take pass on global warming and concentrate on issues like gay marriage.

It will be interesting to watch which shepherds the flock follows.

It's all about us...

It's been a few minutes since we discussed Baby Boomers, and so many us are feeling anxious. As the most over-studied and under-ignored cohort in history starts it shuffle off this mortal coil, we want attention to be paid. And we want to discuss amongst ourselves constantly as well.

We'll probably get it, because we've got most of the loot. One the top advertising firms in the US - JWT - has sliced and diced Boomers into handy categories to predict how they are going to spend their share of the wealth. If you like those colorized personality tests, you're gonna love this one. The categories:

• Low energy loners
• Status seekers
• Woeful worriers
• Modern moralists
• Intense individualists
• Educated aficionados
  
• Happy helpers
• Aloof affluents
• Anxious achievers

None sound all that attractive - save one: Happy Helpers.

Maybe they are on to something.

Flower power...

The steady application of genetic modification to organisms continues - to the horror of some and the benefit of others. Well, this idea is now blooming in the garden.

Flaming tulips. Blue roses. What Dutch growers of old and Dr Tanaka's employers both grasped is that rarity, and hence economic value, can be created by genetic manipulation.

The stripes of the Semper Augustus were caused by the genes of a virus. Not knowing that an infection was involved, the Dutch growers were puzzled why the Semper Augustus would not breed true. The genetics of blue roses, too, have turned out to be more complicated than expected. The relevant genes cannot easily be pasted into rose DNA because the metabolic pathway for creating blue pigment in a rose consists of more chemical steps than it does in other types of flower. (Florigene has sold bluish genetically modified carnations since 1998.) Success, then, has been a matter of pinning down the genes that allow those extra steps to happen, and then transplanting them to their new host.

And not just the appearance of plants is manipulable. Researchers are hoping to make roses smell like roses used to as well.

With a nose both for understanding the molecular origins
of floral scents and for engineering what could be blockbuster flower varieties,
researchers have been teasing out the complex biochemical orchestration
underlying one of life's simplest pleasures. They've been uncovering
fragrance-related genes, the enzymes encoded by those genes, the in-cell
reactions that these enzymes catalyze, and the fragrant performance of all this
molecular biology—a vast aromatic harmony of alcohols, aldehydes, fatty acids,
terpenoids, benzenoids, and other volatile, and therefore sniffable,
chemicals.

I have no death wish and offer no urging to gardeners who find these developments unnatural and unneeded. Gardeners make our world significantly better for all of us.

I will hazard a prediction. As biotech churns out more numerous and spectacular results, resistance to GM flora could fade slowly. Reluctance to adopt this technology is crucial to refine both safety and goals. But this scientific cat is out of the bag.

Ferrofluid sculpture

I can see these replacing aquariums in dentist offices.

[via Neatorama]

Boom time for farms...

Wind farms, that is. They are starting a huge one just north of me around Bloomington, IL. But you don't have to travel far to see giant wind turbines.

Wind power capacity in the United States grew 27 percent last year and is projected to increase another 26 percent in 2007, according to a report released today by the trade group the American Wind Energy Association. The U.S. now has enough installed wind power capacity - 11,603 megawatts - to power between 3 million and 3.5 million homes, which reduces annual greenhouse gas emissions by 23 million tons of carbon dioxide. The number of homes relying on electricity produced by wind energy will rise to nearly 4.5 million by year's end if the AWEA's forecast is accurate. [More]

Wind farms are the darlings of alternate energy enthusiasts and global warming crusaders. And it is hard to criticize something so obviously win-win-win-etc. Only....

• Wind farm stories always include a "X million homes served" figure to impress how much energy they generate. These numbers are the equivalent of a "every US farmer feeding X people" - namely a useless average without any context. For a better idea of how much windpower contributes see this graph. Also keep in mind that there are about 130 million homes in the US and that residential energy demand is about half of total electricity consumption.
• Wind farms require backup "spinning reserve" to take up load when the wind fails. This continues to make wind power relatively expensive compared to other sources, especially coal. Unless a carbon tax priced in the environmental externalities of fossil fuels. (Gosh - where did I just see that?)
  
• Wind turbines are expensive and with demand growing, the prices have no reason to ease.
• You gotta have some way to hook all these generators to the electricity grid. And our grid is having trouble keeping up.

All of these "buts" are problems for engineers to overcome and opportunities for entrepreneurs to invest and profit from. Given the chance our system will work our a solution. But we need to be prepared to see wild profits initially to attract money, and shakeout losses halfway to maturity.

It's about ideas and character and...hair...

John Edwards prepares himself for the Presidency.

Thank goodness we didn't have YouTube when Reagan and his pompadour were president.

Means testing, inequality and subsidies...

Economists love blogs and more than a few of them have been opining about inequality in the US and the globe. When Pres. Bush surprisingly mentioned it (where has this part of his personality been for 6 years?) along with admonishing Wall Street on CEO salaries, he poured gasoline on the debate.

But there is a linkage I believe between inequality of income/assets and the administration ideas for means testing "middle-class" benefits.

The budget represents a challenge to parts of the system of entitlements enacted as part of the Great Society agenda of the 1960s, with plans to cut Medicare spending, the main publicly funded health insurance programme for those over 65, by raising premiums for wealthier recipients.

That could save $66bn over five years, according to budget estimates, and up to $9,000bn during the next 75 years, according to some analysts.

Michael Franc, vice-president for government relations at the Heritage Foundation, said Mr Bush had considered means-testing as part of Social Security reform. “Now there is a shift to applying it across the board for all entitlements. The big change concerns the wealthy. Democrats want to tax them more. Republicans say they want to make them pay more for their middle-class benefits and shoulder more of the burden.” [More]

While normally associated with Medicare, the practice is exactly what prompted the "AGI Test" in the farm bill proposal.

"Going from a $2.5 million AGI to $200,000 AGI is huge," she said.

The AGI is a limit for farmers who wish to receive farm program payments. The lower AGI limit means a producer with more than a $200,000 AGI would not be eligible for commodity payments. The Internal Revenue Service data for 2004 indicated that 97.7 percent of tax filers have an AGI under $200,000. [More]

Regardless of your position on whether inequality is a problem or simply a characteristic of a dynamic and growing economy, one of the social consequences could be the willingness, even the hope of sticking it to the wealthy. For those whose economic conditions have improved, but at a far slower rate than the very top, disallowing federal payments to the privileged is a thought to savor.

There are many of our fellow citizens in this group. Some even vote.

The result might be, in our part of the economy, an amazing number of farmers who somehow make $199,000 every year.

Hey - I finished one!...

After lying moribund for a year, my"side-blog" of book reviews, On the Coffee Table, finally has a new post.

Check it out.

If you have read a good one lately tell me about it and I'll share it here. It doesn't have to be a deep review, just find something you did or did not like about it. I'm trying for one review per week.

Maybe.

I hope you're happy now...

The nascent science of happiness has attracted all sorts of researchers. And produced plenty in strange results.

Some results are predictable enough: Work is miserable, and commuting is worse. Others are not so obvious. For instance, praying is fun, but looking after the kids is not. Spending time with your friends is one of the most enjoyable things you can do, but spending time with your spouse is merely OK. In fact, parents or other relatives turn out to make more enjoyable company than the supposed love of your life.

What is perfectly clear, though, is that socializing with anyone except your boss makes you feel good. Sex is best of all. This is handy advice at last. But what if you are having sex with your boss? Whereof economists cannot speak, we must remain silent. [More]

Another example, the Danes have always scored high on national happiness comparisons. It turns out one reason may be low expectations.

Our analysis points to two explanatory factors. The Danish football triumph of 1992 has had a lasting impact. This victory arguably provided the biggest boost to the Danish psyche since the protracted history of Danish setbacks began with defeat in England in 1066, followed by the loss of Sweden, Norway, Northern Germany, the Danish West Indies, and Iceland. The satisfaction of the Danes, however, began well before 1992, albeit at a more moderate level. The key factor that explains this and that differentiates Danes from Swedes and Finns seems to be that Danes have consistently low (and indubitably realistic) expectations for the year to come. Year after year they are pleasantly surprised to find that not everything is getting more rotten in the state of Denmark.

This finding is supported by Danish news coverage of the 2005 pronouncement by Ruut Veenhoven, Dutch Professor of Social Conditions for Happiness and head of the World Database of Happiness, that Danes are the world’s happiest people. The headlines in Denmark ran: We’re the happiest “lige nu.” The phrase “lige nu,” which can be translated literally as “just now,” is a quintessentially Danish expression redolent, indeed reeking, of the sentiment “for the time being, but probably not for long and don’t have any expectations it will last.” [More]

I wonder if this means all of us corn farmers are in for some grumpy years, because my read on expectations in corn country is pretty dang high.

Still grumpy people are more creative, it seems.

You kids get off my lawn!

Don't tell me my hobby is dull...


There is something about big rocks. Not much, but something. And it makes you want to take a picture.

This is eerily like the family pictures we all took years ago next to "Welcome to Little Rock" or "Entering Florida" signs.

BTW, the third one down is kinda cute...

A tax we could love...OK, tolerate...

There is a glacial movement toward a Pigovian tax to address both global warming issues and energy problems. In fact, some are betting real money on it. Let me introduce - the Carbon Tax.

Any real, lasting solutions will have to be extremely simple, and—because of the high cost implicit in reducing the use and emissions of fossil fuels—will also have to benefit those countries that impose them in other ways. Fortunately, there is such a solution, one that is grippingly unoriginal, requires no special knowledge of economics, and is extremely easy for any country to apply. It's called a carbon tax, and it should be applied across the board to every industry that uses fossil fuels, every home or building with a heating system, every motorist, and every public transportation system. Immediately, it would produce a wealth of innovations designed to save fuel, as well as new incentives to conserve. More to the point, it would produce a big chunk of money that could be used for other things. Anyone for balancing the budget? Fixing Social Security for future generations? Cutting income tax dramatically? As a little foreign-policy side benefit, users of the tax would suddenly find themselves less dependent on Gulf oil or Russian gas. [More]

This idea has been popping up in strange places, and I would not be surprised to see one or two of the dozens of presidential candidates adopt it like Gore did the Internet.

Economist Greg Mankiw makes the most coherent case for this idea:

With the midterm election around the corner, here's a wacky idea you won't often hear from our elected leaders: We should raise the tax on gasoline. Not quickly, but substantially. I would like to see Congress increase the gas tax by $1 per gallon, phased in gradually by 10 cents per year over the next decade. Campaign consultants aren't fond of this kind of proposal, but policy wonks keep pushing for it. [More of a must-read article]

Down here on the farm, I see a lot to love about this idea. Oh sure, the initial reaction will be to lobby for an exemption, like we always do, and a refund of what we pay, but I think this idea has some legs.

First, the extra income sure would be handy to pay my Social Security. And yours, I guess. It could pay for more troops if you want. The point is a carbon tax would be a considerable source of revenue and we are a profession that consumes tax dollars. We want plenty of federal income, right?

Second, a carbon tax could slow the rush to live in the country. The commuting circles around major employment areas would likely shrink or at least slow their expansion rate. With all the farmer complaints about sprawl - while hard to justify - this is one defense.

The first answer is that as we extend our time horizon, gasoline's price-elasticity, or price sensitivity to break free of the jargon, gets larger -- a lot larger. Going out several years or more, individuals have greater scope to take actions that economize on gasoline. They can junk the gas-guzzler, or at least not replace it with another one when the old one gives out. They might calculate the dollar tradeoffs between density (high rents but less need to drive) and sprawl (the reverse) and pick up stakes for a less car-dependent area. They may gravitate toward job opportunities closer to home. And they can make more durable commitments to behavioral changes that reduce the need to drive, like forming a carpool or buying a roadworthy bicycle or selling the far-away vacation home. [More]

Finally, a carbon tax would reward renewable energy sources making ethanol more competitive. The carbon in corn comes from the air, and hence would likely be treated differently than fossil fuels. And don't talk to me about our fuel costs being onerous. Outside irrigation, most of us have much bigger costs to tackle.

In short, I think agriculture could look past their knee-jerk tax reaction to see the power of assessing the externalities of fossil fuel consumption. Producers in the EU have managed. We can too.

The GM/no-till inference...

I use lots of GM seed. Look at my seed bill. But I still till the ground. And I suspect in a few years I won't be alone. Four years of corn residue can be a challenge.

But it is still fun to watch GM seed companies (via mouthpiece organizations) throw out numbers which assume every GM seed falls into untilled earth.

If 4 million cars were taken off the road in a single year, stopping 9 billion kilograms of carbon dioxide being discharged, most environmentalists would whoop with joy. But what if the same saving came from planting genetically modified crops?

This is the claim of an annual audit of GM crops by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA), which is funded largely by the GM industry.

The audit, published on 18 January, bases its estimate on GM planting in 2005 in the US, Canada and Argentina. Graham Brookes of PG Economics in Dorchester, UK, who supplied the data, says 85 per cent of the savings come from the fact that farmers growing weedkiller-resistant GM crops don't have to plough their fields to get rid of weeds, so organic matter in the soil is not exposed to the atmosphere. This, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, prevents the release of 300 kilograms of CO₂ per year per hectare. The rest of the figure is from fuel savings (Agbioforum, vol 9, p 139).

Gundula Azeez of the Soil Association, which represents UK organic farmers, says the ISAAA is only interested in promoting GM crops. [whole article alas, is subscription blocked]

Look, GM crops are slowly overcoming consumer reservations because they are just as safe and nutritionally identical to conventionally bred crops. While I understand the instinct to spin their attributes - I mean, PR workers need to something accomplished at the end of the day - don't expect this producer to back up their exaggerated extrapolations.

GM crops make good sense. They are not the magic bullet for every problem.

And I think the seed costs way too much.

Suddenly it all makes sense...

My travails with a new computer are not unique. I have also noticed that in the three days I have run Gilgamesh, it has downloaded and installed over 10 updates.

While Vista is an excellent upgrade to Windows XP, one that is long overdue, in its first week since the launch, it is still suffering from driver-itis… a just-made-up medical term for a lack of drivers. Sadly, this is what happens every time a new version of Windows is released. Unfortunately, Bill Gates didn’t say anything at all about this, nor was he asked. It’s a pity, because it’s the one most annoying thing about a new operating system – where the ecosystem of drivers has not yet caught up with the mothership.

Instead of getting annoyed by Apple’s ads, it’d be much better if Bill Gates could apply as much pressure on software and hardware partners as possible. For me, knowing that the bits of hardware that don’t work properly on my Tablet PC start working because drivers have suddenly become available and have automatically updated themselves through Microsoft’s ‘Windows Update’ service would really have me saying ‘the wow starts now’.

Unfortunately, we’re all still waiting. Yes, it’s only been a week. But when it comes to compatibility with standard hardware that has been available for years, lack of drivers is not good enough. Bill Gates, it’s great to see you on TV spots and interviewed here and there. But what we really all need is our computers working properly. Until the driver issues are solved, for most people, the wow can wait. [More]

Then I read this quiet notice:

Microsoft's per-incident customer support prices were quietly bumped last week as the company rolled out the newest version of its operating system, Windows Vista. Prices for both Windows Vista and XP support were raised, from $39 to $59 per incident while support prices for Office XP and Office 2007 went from $35 to $49 per incident. General support inquiries as well as inquiries for less prominent software, such as Microsoft Money, remain at $35 per incident. [More]

This makes the guys at Google look better and better.

Where your food comes from...

Why does popcorn cross the road? No wait, that's not right...

Want to feel even colder?...




Webcam beach pictures from Aruba.

Hmmm, I'm detecting a theme in recent posts.

(Thanks, Jack)

Just another day at the beach...


Fireworks, lightning, and a comet in Australia.
And unless I miss my guess, an immense amount of Fosters.
(Click to enlarge to see the comet in the middle)
[via Metafilter]

Hit the pause button...

Had I but known - as the famous phrase goes - how challenging a NEW computer with Vista would be, I would have waited longer. That said, my old one needed a complete overhaul and it is always tricky to accomplish that.

Still, given the number of backward-compatibility software problems with Vista, I strongly suggest you wait six months or so. Even then brace yourself for some weird issues like Excel taking 30 seconds to load. (What is that about?)

Blogs, TV, video, politics, and tomorrow...

Andrew Sullivan has sobering and perhaps prophetic words about what is happening to public communication.

Citizen journalism is one thing. Citizen television is another. It brings the revolutionary potential of the blogosphere to the explosive power of the visual image. One day we will become accustomed to it, able to discount the inevitable distortions it will bring. But not yet — and one can safely predict that at some point in the wide-open race for the American presidency in 2008 at least one candidate will be destroyed by video-blogs and one may be handed a victory. Every gaffe will matter much more; and every triumph can echo for much longer.

With all of 18 months in the television industry, and only a little less as a blogger, I can sense the communication sea change only faintly. I can still hide back here on the farm when the tsunami rolls in.

For all of my friends who are involved in either TV or politics, this must be unnerving.

Or exhilarating.

Rising above our diet...

Good authors can persuade beyond the power of their ideas. Michael Pollan is one of them. In his previous books, notably The Botany of Desire and The Omnivore's Dilemma, he attracts readers with simplicity and a slathering of good old common sense. He is especially suspicious of anything that hints at "science".

His latest polemic against what passes for nutritional science advances his earlier misgivings to full-blown food-Darwinism:

Note that these ecological relationships are between eaters and whole foods, not nutrients. Even though the foods in question eventually get broken down in our bodies into simple nutrients, as corn is reduced to simple sugars, the qualities of the whole food are not unimportant — they govern such things as the speed at which the sugars will be released and absorbed, which we’re coming to see as critical to insulin metabolism. Put another way, our bodies have a longstanding and sustainable relationship to corn that we do not have to high-fructose corn syrup. Such a relationship with corn syrup might develop someday (as people evolve superhuman insulin systems to cope with regular floods of fructose and glucose), but for now the relationship leads to ill health because our bodies don’t know how to handle these biological novelties. In much the same way, human bodies that can cope with chewing coca leaves — a longstanding relationship between native people and the coca plant in South America — cannot cope with cocaine or crack, even though the same “active ingredients” are present in all three. Reductionism as a way of understanding food or drugs may be harmless, even necessary, but reductionism in practice can lead to problems. [More]

Pollan is a leading voice in the "we used to eat better" school of nutrition. Over the years he has graduated from mere wariness of the food industry to sincere opposition. It all seems so logical in his witty prose.

Not all of us are buying his extrapolated conclusions.

But Pollan's nutritional Darwinism only makes sense if the selection pressures of the distant past were in perfect alignment with the health concerns of today. In other words, our food culture would have evolved to protect us from cancer, heart disease, and obesity only if those maladies had been a primary threat to reproduction in the ancient world. It's hard to imagine that the risks posed by these so-called "diseases of affluence"—which often strike late in life, after we've had babies—would have been as significant to our fast-living, sickly forebears as the dangers of, say, bacterial infections or the occasional drought. Indeed, for much of human history, natural selection might well have traded off the dangers of morbid obesity to mitigate the risk of starvation. There's just no way to know how the ancient culinary traditions will fare in the modern world until we try them. [More]

It astounds me that with every leap of technological empowerment, the effort to redraw the past springs up anew. "Our food was better when we killed the chickens in our own backyards." old-foodies wail. That subjective judgment is hard to counter, but we do know it was more dangerous. That small problem food science did handle well.

I do not argue our food and nutrition are as good as they can be. In fact, thanks to critics like Pollan, pressure is mounting for our food industry (of which agriculture is a small part, not the other way round, incidentally) to turn its efforts to applying the results pouring out of research institutions. Our foods must address what we now know to be true about both our bodies and our diet.

There is room in America especially to allow wide experimentation to find the answer to this question. But my money is on technology.

The gift of patient craftsmanship...

Long-time USFR viewer Bill Keever sent me a wonderful plaque he made with his scroll saw. He makes all kinds of interesting stuff, like this combine:

More here.

Thanks, Bill!

The New Computer, Episode Three...

Things are improving, boys and girls. (See previous posts here and here)The speed difference is distinctly noticeable and the new monitor is breath-taking. Videos look great.

Assorted notes:

• While it may seem a hassle to reset stuff like toolbars the way you are used to, reloading software like MS Office, for example gives you the choice of a clean start. It reminds me of the first week of every quarter of college - when your grade point was unblemished by actual results. Sometimes a clean start is just what you need.
• Because the new monitor is 16 x 9 aspect - like new TV's you have room at the edges for stuff on the desktop. I think we are just beginning to see freebie "Gadgets" to load into those spots. I'm using the clock, calendar, notepad, and calculator on my Sidebar. Pretty handy.
• After the first few start-ups, the UAP (previous post) becomes slightly less annoying. I may still shut it down. I use Live One Care for security - it works well and I can load it on three computers for one price.
• The speakers I chose (Dell 525 30 watt 2.1 with subwoofer) sound good but they are hard-wired into components so I can't fish the wires through a raceway I built behind my desktop to hide clutter. Also the volume control is a thumbwheel (like in the center of newer mice) that is less handy than my old set.
• Wait - I just talked myself into keeping my old speakers. The computer doesn't care what is plugged into the orange jack.
• Be sure and check the websites of your old software to see if there are reports of Vista incompatibility. This is especially true of software that "calls home" for upgrades automatically. You may want to shut that feature off and just do it manually from time to time. (Adobe Acrobat is a prime example)
• The hard drive and vent fan on this computer (Dell XPS 210) are very quiet. In fact, I sometimes think nothing is happening and end up double-loading a program because I can't hear the hard drive working.
• Wired keyboards/mice are sooo yesterday. I just moved my old wireless set to Gilgamesh (my new computer's name) and it picked added them without a hitch.
• My wireless network took zero configuring. I just plugged into the router.
• I'm gradually reducing the number of separate programs I use, so each new installation is a chance to lose something. I am dropping my Palm Pilot and moving everything to Outlook and my phone, for example.
• Having trouble getting my weather station to find the old file I copied across.
  
• The Windows Media Center is, at first glance, totally lame. It's like picking up a first grade book. I use Musicmatch Jukebox to manage all my music, especially all the choir demo tracks I burn for my choir. WMC looks like it was designed to be used on an iPod with no keyboard. Nearly useless, IMHO. MMJ is working fine though, and the tracks transferred OK.
• I haven't tried WMC with my pictures - I will continue with Picasa. It's free, bulletproof and superbly easy to use. In fact, it may be the best piece of software I've ever used.

I will doubtless come across more hiccups, but I think we're going to live.

Whaddaya mean you don't know who Gilgamesh is? I suppose you name your computers after flowers or old girlfriends?

The Mother of All Libraries...

Google, in their corporate drive to avoid being evil, is instead scanning and digitizing all the books in the world. Yep, all of 'em.

Google intends to scan every book ever published, and to make the full texts searchable, in the same way that Web sites can be searched on the company’s engine at google.com. At the books site, which is up and running in a beta (or testing) version, at books.google.com, you can enter a word or phrase—say, Ahab and whale—and the search returns a list of works in which the terms appear, in this case nearly eight hundred titles, including numerous editions of Herman Melville’s novel. Clicking on “Moby-Dick, or The Whale” calls up Chapter 28, in which Ahab is introduced. You can scroll through the chapter, search for other terms that appear in the book, and compare it with other editions. Google won’t say how many books are in its database, but the site’s value as a research tool is apparent; on it you can find a history of Urdu newspapers, an 1892 edition of Jane Austen’s letters, several guides to writing haiku, and a Harvard alumni directory from 1919.

No one really knows how many books there are. The most volumes listed in any catalogue is thirty-two million, the number in WorldCat, a database of titles from more than twenty-five thousand libraries around the world. Google aims to scan at least that many. “We think that we can do it all inside of ten years,” Marissa Mayer, a vice-president at Google who is in charge of the books project, said recently, at the company’s headquarters, in Mountain View, California. “It’s mind-boggling to me, how close it is. I think of Google Books as our moon shot.”

I think that analogy is wonderfully apt. Going to the moon had enormous unpredicted benefits, and the Google library will do the same. What might this mean?

• A decrease in duplicative work, as well as plagiarism. Like grad students looking for a topic for their research thesis, authors will be challenged come up with something that has not been done to death already.
• Periodic revivals in the popularity of old authors. When long-out-of print volumes are not hard to access, everyone can rediscover great writing from the past.
• More difficulty in public lying. As candidates are now aware, every utterance can be recorded, and researched for the slightest variance from the truth, opening them to vitriolic attacks from opponents.
  
• A new appreciation for true creativity. Innovative thinking will be provable, not just apparent, since a search for the same concept can be done rapidly.

I actually think this could revive the mordant publishing industry. Either that, or finish it off, as people finally start reading everything via some electronic media.

As for me I better get my brilliant new novel into a publisher before somebody else can think of the same thing.

It's about this young farmer who finds a "Ring of Power" and takes it with him to a magical agronomy school, where he discovers an ongoing struggle between good and subsidies. He and his valiant companions have fantastic adventures aboard the spaceship "Entrepreneur" until unraveling a sinister plot involving the painting "American Gothic" which when seen in a certain light reveals most Iowans are really descended from aliens. [Hint, look a the guy and then check out the Roswell dudes].



Then things get complicated...

It will have lots of computer violence and just the right amount of naughtiness, but no strong language.

I'm thinking 14 volumes or so. These ideas just come to me. It's a gift.

I thought he did it from the Leaning Tower of Pisa

Remember the old feather-cannonball argument by Galileo? Turns out he was right.

Great stuff from when America still had dreams...

Trouble on the road...

Strangely, while railroads are enjoying whacking profits, trucking firms are not.

But here's where it gets weird. In theory, the fortunes of all the components of the Transport Index, which include shippers, truckers, railroads, and airlines, should move somewhat in tandem. Most goods that are sent by ship, rail, and air have to go on a truck at some point. It would be strange for one link in the freight chain to be doing well while others are dragging.

And yet that's precisely what seems to be happening. Truckers, who carry 70 percent of all domestic freight, are doing poorly. The American Trucking Associations' Truck Tonnage Index fell through 2006. And in the fourth quarter of 2006, the index was down noticeably from the fourth quarter of 2005, even after accounting for the temporary post-Katrina spike.

The reasons are weird as well:

A second rapidly growing energy source also helps rail companies while doing nothing for truckers: ethanol. As the Wall Street Journal reported this week, ethanol can't be pumped through existing oil pipelines. And it makes far more sense to ship the fuel in 30,000-gallon tank cars than in tanker trucks. Ethanol shipments tripled between 2001 and 2006 and are expected to rise 33 percent in 2007, the Journal reported.

Another large, but seemingly irrelevant, economic trend appears to be hurting truckers: gift cards. American Trucking Associations Chief Economist Bob Costello noted that "the fall freight season is changing." With the proliferation of gift cards, the holiday shopping season is spilling over into January. So, retailers aren't moving as much merchandise to stores in October and November as they have in the past. [More]

I've also been wondering about those farmers who have launched successful trucking companies as a sideline only to be knee-capped by the proposed AGI limits.

To receive commodity payments, producers must also meet a limit on Adjusted Gross Income (AGI), which includes wages and other income minus farm expenses and depreciation. This plan reduces the AGI limit of $2.5 million to a new limit of $200,000. If a producer has an annual adjusted gross income of $200,000 or more, that individual would no longer be eligible for commodity payments. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data for 2004 indicate that 97.7 percent of all American tax filers have an AGI under $200,000. [More]

That'll teach 'em to work hard in the off-season.

Alas, Babylon...

I have noticed a common theme in recent critiques of the ethanol explosion that have deluged the media is recent days: few of them seem to think the push can be derailed.

Not that any of these facts are likely to make much difference in the current Washington debate. The corn and sugar lobbies have their roots deep in both parties, and now they have the mantra of "energy independence" to invoke, however illusory it is. If anything, Congress may add to Mr. Bush's ethanol mandate requests.

So here comes Big Corn. Make that Very, Very Big Corn. Sooner or later, our experience with this huge public gamble may make us yearn for the efficiency, capacity, lower cost and--yes--superior environmental record of "Big Oil." [More]

While this tone usually implies intellectual condescension, another way to read it is there isn't much in the way of corn growers getting what they think they want - enormous, persistent demand for corn, forcing higher prices despite market forces to the contrary.

So while subsidy foes, formerly important customers, environmentalists, and political pundits pronounce their jeremiads, I haven't seen anybody offer to jump in front this runaway juggernaut.

"Ethanol was always seen as an 8-year-old kid that needed to be taken care of, but now it's a 27-year-old graduate student with a Ph.D from Harvard that wants to live at home with mom and dad," said Michael Swanson, vice president and agricultural economist at Wells Fargo. [More]

Well, shoot - we can handle complainers. Just ignore 'em.

Still, in our hearts, we corn growers know we better get all we can while we can.



What an uplifting professional credo.

Oh yeah - that was fun...

Moving to a new computer is always interesting, but my latest migration had much more at risk. First off, my accumulated files of music and photos made the move much larger than ever before. Second, Windows Vista is another breed of cat altogether.

The good news:

• The "Transfer Files and Settings" program included with the startup screen worked (sorta). I used my network to hook up the two machines, and after about 2 hours, the old one showed the transfer worked, the new one was unsure.
• To the best of my knowledge, I haven't lost anything valuable.
• My software seems to be reloading OK.
• The Internet hooked itself up simply by plugging into my router.
• It is somewhat cuter, and the sidebar is interesting.
• The new wide screen monitor is a huge improvement.
  

The not so good news:

• MS Outlook does everything it can to make migration impossible. First you have to find the darned .pst file with all your messages, contacts, dates, etc. on it. Not easy. The transfer programs did zip for this data, so I had to do it by brute force. Not pretty.
• QuickBooks 2006 may or may not run OK on it. My re-installation will not download updates. Only QB 2007 is guaranteed to work. Thanks a lot, Intuit! [Kiss $200 good-bye]
  
• The User Account Protection feature is horrible. You are constantly interrupted with warning messages and it takes multiple clicks to get going again.

The bad news, then, is that UAP is a sad, sad joke. It's the most annoying feature that Microsoft has ever added to any software product, and yes, that includes that ridiculous Clippy character from older Office versions. The problem with UAP is that it throws up an unbelievable number of warning dialogs for even the simplest of tasks. That these dialogs pop up repeatedly for the same action would be comical if it weren't so amazingly frustrating. It would be hilarious if it weren't going to affect hundreds of millions of people in a few short months. It is, in fact, almost criminal in its insidiousness. [More]

• The UAP can be disabled, but there is serious discussion about the wisdom of that too.
  
• The file transfer program added some weird driver from my old computer that won't work, so I get a warning messages every time I boot up. I'm working on this one.

I backed everything up completely before starting, but that is a cold comfort.

Wait, speaking of cold comfort, is it thirsty in here or is it me?...


More if I survive...

Here's the deal, comrades...

My new computer arrived [ordered early 1/29 - arrived afternoon 1/31!!], and I'm going to devote myself to getting up and running. It's always nerve-racking until the old files are transferred, the Internet is locked in and the heritage software is re-installed, so deal me out for a while, please.

I'll let you know about the experience on the other side.

Cover me, I'm going in...

I'm sure there is a logical explanation...

Japanese Air Force Training


I think the dude on the left is grabbin' some air, man.

[via Neatorama]

I want to be an earl, please...

Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton? Is it me or are we starting to look like a monarchy? And if so, is it a bad thing? Michael Barone (US News and World Report) considers the idea:

Not that anyone assumes that family members are all alike. It would not do for candidate Bush in 2000 and for candidate Clinton today to claim to be clones of his father and her husband. Rather, candidate Bush made comments about his mother's fearsomeness, and candidate Clinton's "let's chat" suggests that she is more of a listener and less of a nonstop talker than her husband. So the trend to royalism may not be all bad. It does give some candidates an unfair advantage over others. But let's face it: Only four of the 300 million living Americans has been president and probably only 10 or 12 more ever will be. We need as much knowledge of our presidential candidates as we can get and, if we get some of it by knowing their families as closely as we know the families of recent occupants of the White House, so be it. As Bagehot put it, "The best reason why Monarchy is a strong government is, that it is an intelligible government. The mass of mankind understand it, and they hardly anywhere in the world understand any other."

In any case, it's no sure thing that a Clinton will follow a Bush who followed a Clinton who followed a Bush. But keep the following in the back of your mind. George P. Bush will be eligible to run for president in 2012. Chelsea Clinton will be eligible to run for president in 2016. So will Jenna and Barbara Bush, who will turn 35 several days after the election. And Jeb Bush, who had a fine record in eight years as governor of Florida, will be younger in 2024 than John McCain will be in 2008 or Ronald Reagan was in 1984. Royalism may be here to stay.

And the answer is...

I appreciate the thoughtful and civil comments regarding the "1031 recommendation" in the Bush farm bill proposals. I thought, "What would Milton Friedman do?" and came to these suggestions.

1. My favorite: Don't give subsidies to 1031 exchanged ground. Don't give them to any other ground either. It is simple, fair and saves taxpayer money. But as many of you have pointed out, the only farmers who think subsidies are the problem, not the solution are me and Bob and Gene and this guy I met in Nebraska a while back. So I'll give that idea a rest.
2. Lower the capital gains rate to 8%. Lowering the capital gains tax rate has been shown to increase capital gains tax revenues. You read that right. Of course, lowering it to zero (which some recommend) would generate zero tax revenue, so somewhere between the current rate (15%) and zero there could be a peak. My guess is around 8%. Interestingly, I once asked a 1031 exchange expert what rate would make the expense and hassle of such exchanges more trouble than just paying the tax. His answer was "about 8%". So lower the rate to 8%, get more tax revenue, and slow drastically like-kind exchanges by encouraging investors to just take the cash instead.

Thank ya, thank ya vera much