Cuz We Said So

UK Green Says Huge Pop Cut Needed, Does Not Offer to Do Self In as Example to Rest of Us

UK population must fall to 30m, says Porritt:

JONATHON PORRITT, one of Gordon Brown’s leading green advisers, is to warn that Britain must drastically reduce its population if it is to build a sustainable society.

Porritt’s proposal would require the population be cut roughly in half.  Anyone have any ideas for that might be accomplished?  You know, I doubt… indeed, I hope… that there aren’t 30 million people in the UK who agree with Mr. Porritt… but if we’re going to thin the herd, we’ve got to start somewhere.  Let’s hear from the volunteers.

Personal Supercomputer Is Coming… Again

Jack Gold of Computerworld says, “Within the next three to four years, most PC users will see their machines morph into personal supercomputers.”  I’m glad to hear this, of course; no one loves a new, faster gadget more than me.  But it doesn’t strike me as a startling revelation.  Indeed, this has already happened, hasn’t it?  Everything is relatively, after all, including what we call a supercomputer. 

Anyone remember the Cray X-MP?  It was the world’s fastest computer between 1982 and 1985.  Here’s a chart comparing the processing power of the earliest and fastest models of the X-MP with the Core 2 Quad processor in the desktop PC I’m using to write this blog post.  (The chart is based on figures I pulled from Wikipedia and CPU World.)  I think you’ll agree my PC compares favorably.

 

It’s my assumption that until we run into some insurmountable physical barrier or the robots take over, the supercomputers in any given period will rival the computing power of kitchen appliances and baby toys in some later period.  It’s just the timing that’s in question.

In Memoriam: Schrödinger (1989-2009)

Schroe has been a part of my family for nearly half of my life.  Russell found her wandering the streets during our senior year of college, when we were roommates in an off-campus apartment, and brought her home.  She was just a tiny thing at the time, small enough that I could pick her up with one hand, with her front legs touching my index finger, and her hind legs touched my pinky.

When I wrote about Spot, I said that he was temperamentally more like a dog than a cat.  Not so with Schrödinger.  If anything, she was the archetype of a cat: poised and independent.  A friend once said that she looked like the perfect cartoon representation of a girl cat, with her long flowing hair and regal demeanor.  She wasn’t into people food, and wasn’t as overtly affectionate as Spot.  She sought attention more selectively, and rarely accepted it from strangers.  Yet somehow, she always managed to convey the impression that she considered me hers.  She was stubborn.  For most of her life, if she was annoyed with you, or you picked her up when it wasn’t her idea to visit, no amount of coaxing or cajoling would elicit a purr.  It was her way or the highway; there was just no winning her over.  When I brought Spot into the house, she gave me the cold shoulder for months.  In recent years, though, she mellowed a bit, and would even seek out the attention of house guests.  I wondered if she had at some point concluded that life was too short to quibble when the situation called for a nice scratch behind the ears. 

And life is indeed too short.  At 19 years old, nearly 20, Schroe was a very senior cat, and to all appearances, until perhaps a year ago, the picture of health.  Around that time, she started slowing down a bit, and becoming less attentive about grooming.  I could tell she was starting to feel the weight of the years.  Still, she would bounce up and down the stairs at will, and remained unquestionably the queen of her castle as far as the other cats were concerned.  Last winter, before Christmas, she started to lose weight, and in time, blood work revealed her liver and kidneys were giving out on her.  Kidney and liver failure are quite common in older cats, and symptoms don’t tend to show until something like 70 percent of the organs’ function is gone.  For Schroe, the diagnosis came late.

A week ago, we put her on subcutaneous fluids, the administration of which she endured with impressive patience, but the toxins in her system continued to build, and her red cell count continued to drop.  She had a seizure on Wednesday, which was scary and heartbreaking, and really took the wind out of her sails for the rest of the day.  A follow up blood panel at the vets office told us that all of her numbers had gotten worse.  She had developed jaundice, and her eating had slowed to almost nothing.  She could barely move.  By all accounts, as her condition progressed, things were likely to get even worse, with more seizures, and in the end, possible congestive heart failure.  I wanted to spare her that.

And so I spent as much time as I could with her… gave her water from tuna cans as a treat, which despite her apparent lack of appetite she slurped down happily, and took her outside to play in the yard that she used to study so curiously from the front window.  Willful to the end, though she struggled to walk and had to pause to rest every ten feet or so, she still managed to explore the entire yard, and make across the two of the neighbors lawns before I decided it was time to carry her back to familiar territory.  On Friday morning, we made her final trip to the vet, and Schroe fell asleep as I petted her, resting her head on my hand as I held her, and scratched under her chine one last time.  And so I said goodbye to another tiny friend, who has left behind many wonderful memories, and a little hole in my heart.  I hope she was at peace at the end.

Obama Plan More Than Doubles Expected Deficits

This just in:

President Obama’s budget proposals, if carried out, would produce a staggering $9.3 trillion in total deficits over the next decade, much more than the White House has predicted, the Congressional Budget Office said on Friday.

The office’s estimates of deficits in the fiscal years 2010 through 2019 “exceed those anticipated by the administration by $2.3 trillion.”

The deficits under the Obama plan would be $4.9 trillion more than the projected deficits if there were no changes in current laws and policies — what the nonpartisan budget office calls its baseline assumption.

If you’re surprised, then you are simply naive.  The rest of us expected Obama to do exactly this.

Even Obama’s budget director had to admit that the proposed spending levels were “ultimately not sustainable.”  And that’s just based on the current projection.  If you think this is the worst-case scenario, then you’re even more naive.  The cost of Obama’s plan has already more than doubled since it was announced during his campaign.  My guess would be that once implemented, it could easily cost two to five times more than the projection.  Most government programs vastly exceed their projected expense.

This averages out to about a trillion a year, but again, I think that’s very low.  This year’s deficit is going to top 2 trillion by itself.

Sort of puts this photo into perspective, doesn’t it?

The photo shows John Spratt giving George Bush the Gold, Silver, and Bronze Medals for Fiscal Irresponsibility for running deficits of $482B, $413B, and $398B.  And that was while escalating the war in Iraq.  Obama’s plan expects no Iraq war.

The question is: when does our national debt become unsustainable, and what happens then?

The debt now stands at around $11 trillion, with about $6.5 trillion owed to individuals, corporations and governments and other lenders, foreign or domestic, while about $4.3 trillion is owed to the funds for Social Security benefits, military and civil service pensions and other government programs.

links for 2009-03-17

• GreatBigStuff.com: Common objects. Uncommonly BIG sizes!
  I like the giant-sized Monopoly pieces in particular.
  (tags: gifts novelty big)

links for 2009-03-13

• Stephen King's 'It' heads to theaters
  It has been about 27 years, so I guess we're about due for some more Pennywise. I guess we all continue to float down here, Georgie!
• PC World: Apple's iPhone 3.0: 10 Features That Might Make the Cut
  Whatever else makes the cut, can cut and paste please be included? Please??

links for 2009-03-11

• Adagio Teas
  I haven't ordered from them yet, but their site intrigues me, particularly the custom blends option. How much variety can you find here? Just as a for-instance, they sell 16 different varieties of Oolong.
  (tags: tea)

Kindle Books Come to the iPhone

As some had speculated, Amazon today rolled out a Kindle for iPhone app, which lets you read books in your Kindle library on your phone, and which syncs your progress between devices.  I downloaded the app at once, of course, and can report that even with my crummy eyesight, the reading experience is pretty good (and the adjustable text sixe appreciated).  I was surprised at how quickly the book loaded from the Archived Items screen.  Even via 3G, it took just a few seconds for it to pop the book up. 

This strikes me as an interesting segmentation strategy.  Obviously Amazon would love to draw as many of us into their content channel as possible, so that when we buy a book, we buy a Kindle book, and therefore buy from them.  Having the iPhone app gives them an opportunity to pull in people too price sensitive to spring for a Kindle 2, thereby allowing Amazon to sell what I’m guessing is higher margin content without first having to sell (again guessing) lower margin hardware.

Periodic Table of Cupcakes

This is the first (and in all likelihood, last) link I have ever posted from WomansDay.com.