Fiction is Not all Bad and Confessions of a Used-Book Salesman

Anyone who knows me, also knows how much I like to browse fictional bookshelves.  This was not always something I would admit.  There was a time when I too suffered from the mistaken notion that reading fiction was of somewhat lesser importance to reading fact.  

It's now when I know better that I can say that most written material that portrays itself as fact is really fiction, and probably more fictional than those books like my own (now) that claim to be almost totally fictional.  I dare anyone to find a real fact in anything I have ever read or written.  No, the world of writing is almost always fictional.

That's ok!  People can cope with a fictional world.  There is no necessity for what you read to be fact, starting with Santa Claus!  How boring would life be without this strange man or idea of a man who lives forever.  

The Most Amazing Fiction:

Closer to home, we have God, the most mythical being ever and the most fictional character to be found ever.  What would our world be like without God?  

Even though God as a human being is fiction, we have a very strong sense that God matters, and in that sense God is very real.  God is a paradox being fictional and real at the same time.  Jesus as a human likewise is fictional and real at the same time.  

People could argue to their death that God and Jesus do not and did not ever exist, but they would miss the point.  We have the capacity and the potential for God and Jesus to exist in our mind and that is sufficient.

Others will add to the reality of God that was created in the past just as one might create a chair and add legs and cushions.  We see a chair and we don't say it does not exist.  We experience God and we don't experience that God does not exist.  Did we create the chair any more than we created God?  

Some readers are now thinking, oops blasphemy, Arthur said that God does not exist!  Or, perhaps, they have moved on to another site.  

Well, really does it matter what I say, even if I say God is fictional.  We all know that there is no human being, God.  Thus, God as a human being is entirely fictional since God is not real, reality being material.  

Since the past does not now exist then God does not exist as Jesus, even if he was once a human being because Jesus no longer exists as a human being.  Jesus is not material.  Matter is not reality.  Matter is fictional.  Now is a fictional notion.

Logic as Serving an Uncertain Purpose:  

Should I make my point?  Well, it is that we live in a dream world.  There is no proof of reality, only our speculation based on what we feel, see, hear, touch, and taste, ... or know about in other ways.  God is entirely an abstraction to us.  God is not real now because we don't see time as anything but a flow.  There is no real present only a stream of presents that make up what we make out to be reality, but which is really fictional, like a dream!  

Wait a minute!  Is there a flaw in the logic of my logic?  If we are not what we think we are, then God may be more real than we think.  We should really know ourselves, but we don't, any more than we can claim to know God.

Ask yourself whether God existed before you existed and you will be surprised what you find out.

        

Confessions of a Used-Book Salesman
http://www.slate.com/toolbar.aspx?action=print&id=2268000

(via Instapaper)

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends!  May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

In Politics, Do Individual People Matter? What is the CFGG?

Politics is mainly about people's ideals and visions, which makes it always controversial since sharing ideals and visions is a complex process. The Citizens for Good Governance group is still very informal. It's organisation has leaders, but people with strong ideals can make a significant contribution through regular participation.

http://www.nkpedersen.ca/cfgg-ls/10%2010%2009%20CFGG_Frequently_asked_Questions.pdf

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

Hatred and Murders are Possibly America's Most Expensive Problems

What do you think would happen if America really became a more civilised society? Maybe the economy would tank further! There is so much investment by the community in civil strife and arguing that the country would go into major depression.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/09/opinion/09blow.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

What Exactly is Global Warming?

There are those who are very wary of science portraying itself as a must and defining an imperative political ideology. Vaclav Klaus is one of those new leaders of the former Eastern Bloc who proposes quite convincingly that there are real dangers in letting science dictate public policy without strong challenge. Such is the global warming debate!

It's not an accident that historically Egypt, Japan, Russia, Iran, Germany and China developed political organisations that we refer to as despotism. All promulgated that key aspects of their living environment required the total management of all aspects of society if that society were to survive in the long term. The costs of bending to public policy in these countries were the loss of individual freedoms and the imposition of a state ideology and ways of thinking that survive in it's many descendants of closed mind behaviourism to this day. Thus, it is that fear of something big is used by leaders to subjugate individuals to a single way of thinking, an ideology that seems paramount.

The reality is that leadership by consultation and openness are almost always better suited forms of organisation against major threats. Without openness one finds leadership by force and low intellect.

Read Vaclav's assessment of the political organisations response to the very abstract idea of global warming. The world can respond to pollution through means other than force though the response may be slower initially as people gradually climb on board to sound logically argued political policy rather than assuming political policy based on fear. Low cost education and openness of information and expression of ideas and opinions are the keys to effective political change and sustenance of a compatible balance of purpose in society with good governance. Science needs to conform to the ideals of open challenges to the authority of theory over fact.

http://www.klaus.cz/clanky/266

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

Article: G is for Goldilocks. Scientist Says Life on Discovered Planet is Certain or 100 percent likely

That's a bold speculation...

G is for Goldilocks
http://seedmagazine.com/content/print/g_is_for_goldilocks/

(via Instapaper)

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends!  May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

Article: Trapping the Lord of War: The Rise and Fall of Viktor Bout

Some people are responsible for more misery and pain than any of us can ever imagine.  More so than many current terrorists...

Trapping the Lord of War: The Rise and Fall of Viktor Bout
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,druck-721532,00.html

(via Instapaper)

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends!  May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

Warner Bros scraps 3-D plans for next "Harry Potter" Movie

I thought you might be interested in this:

http://r.reuters.com/qum67p

I found this using the News Pro iPhone application from Thomson Reuters.

To put News Pro on your iPhone or Blackberry, visit:

http://reuters.com/mobile

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

West Nile symptoms more common than thought: study

I thought readers might be interested in this:

http://r.reuters.com/nuj67p

I found this using the News Pro iPhone application from Thomson Reuters.

To put News Pro on your iPhone or Blackberry, visit:

http://reuters.com/mobile

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

People Search Engine

Looking for someone? Try ....

http://pipl.com/

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

Why America is in Such a Horrible Mess and Begging China to Reform!

It takes two major mistakes or one bad policy, that of not paying a 'real' interest rate, or two situations to get into a real mess.  America has found them!  One is a financial melt down that calls for lowering interest rates if it is to be sorted out the incorrect but preferred way!  Two is a manufacturing meltdown that calls for lowering interest rates in order to avoid the competitive exchange rate disadvantages of doing what is needed which is the very opposite!  

Two bad policies don't make a good one, and so America is caught in a full economic meltdown from which there is no easy end other than massive unemployment of both labour and capital.

America, solve your problems and raise your interest rates!!!  Start paying your way in the world economy and stop living off your generous trading neighbours.  Don't worry about China. The problem is at home, and I don't expect that you will really deal with it as countries in Europe are being forced to!  Just watch others suffer with deflation and see your financial Viet Nam emerge from the financing mistakes presently being made in America.  Have pride and don't beg China for reforms when the real issues are at home. 

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends!  May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

A Review of "State of Fear" by Michael Crichton

As befits the repetition of history, I don't read a Michael Crichton book because I see it in the bookstores and say 'ah' now there's a book I should read. No! My reading of his books happens because a friend or relative much brighter than myself suggests it would be a good book for me to read! State of Fear is probably a good book for you to read. It has been a best seller, whatever that means. It tells a modestly interesting story.

I'm, like many people, very curious to see the world go in the right directions. I know beauty and pretty things and balance and I like to think positively about how the creatures on our planet will fare. Global warming is in my opinion a bit of blurred pseudoscience written bold well before it's due. As Michael shows in his book, the jurying still very much out. Perhaps, the emphasis is wrongly placed if we think of global warming as a single effect of man's passage on the earth. Sure the globe will get warmer than it otherwise would because we burn stuff in a net sense. We burn and heat things up and the great old earth cools things down again to bring all into balance. That's GAIA, a subtle process of self or cybernetic correcting that the earth as a balancing organism engages in.

Michael conceives of demons and good guys in battle to understand how misfitting it can be to go overboard in any one direction, either abusing the earth or trying to help it too much. We need to recognise that we are part of the problem and part of the solution and the mix is not necessarily balanced.

Hopefully, people can reach into their philosophical beings to devise the energies need to understand better how our world can be made a better place. It's no good believing in myths, such as economic equilibrium or environmental balance. There are many directions that major environmental changes can push people. We need a form of collective wisdom that provides a cushion against the extremes.

As an idealist, I would like to see lushness in the environment and appreciate what Crichton is saying when he points out that our predecessors engineered our present environment much more than we can realise without consideration of the possibilities. He is referring not to the last several hundred years but to millenia. Yes, we are recipients of many cumulative streams of effort going back a very long time.

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

Games and Phones

Put in the position of catch up in it's lead technology area, RIM has to put together products that will excite the market gasping for offerings from the likes of Apple, Samsung, Google and Microsoft. 

http://www.eetimes.com/design/communications-design/4209284/RIM-Torch-Snuffed-?cid=NL_CommsDesign&Ecosystem=communications-design

I myself am excited that Fable III is about to appear shortly.  Will it be revolutionary in the Napoleonic sense? 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/fable-iii-preview

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends!  May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

Global Warming is Bothering Michael Crichton

Whether you believe in global warming or not, something is amiss and it may surprise you!

On Thin Ice
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/208775?RS_show_page=0

(via Instapaper)

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends!  May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

Making WIFI Available to Your Customers

Yes! It's true. Businesses that make WIFI available for free to their customers will do so much better than their competitors. Yet, while I was touring Italy and Switzerland, it was amazing how many businesses insisted on a silly charge for wifi, losing custom all the while I suspect:

http://www.howlifeworks.com/business/wi-fi_hotspot

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

Wonder where the bees went?

The mystery may have been solved:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/science/07bees.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

Would That We Were All Bankers!

In a world in which it is so easy to gather information, one would be wise to think long term.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/oct/07/farewell-to-wall-street-us-financial-crisis?CMP=EMCGT_071010&

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

The Relentless Rise of Debt and What it Could Mean

My position has been that excessive debt is a very likely precursor to conflict.  In political terms no single thing can be said to cause another.  Explanations of the downhill slide in Europe during the 1920s and 1930s cannot be boiled into single causes.  That internal social conflict rose because of debilitating inflation in house values cannot be ignored by saying it was due to inflation per se.  The call for conquest arose because of fear by the majority that they would not have a dignified home in relative terms. We should not forget that the fear was let lose through the expansion of debt and the various ways communities delt with it; some by knuckling under, others by random violence, others by organised violence, and some by organised political solutions we never want to see again.  How will your community cope? 

http://www.economist.com/content/global_debt_clock

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends!  May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

The Issue of Whether the White House Relied too much on BP, Blocking spill info and so Endangered the Environment

I thought my readers might be interested in this Reuters page which touches on the issue of how much fear needs to be stimulated to get the people with solutions to act:

http://r.reuters.com/had37p

The world is full of uncertainties and rarely do political leaders anticipate major events and changes in time to avoid them. We are thus continually in the position of seeing the late resolution of crises and disasters.

I found this using the News Pro iPad application from Thomson Reuters.

To put News Pro on your iPhone, iPad or Blackberry, visit:

http://reuters.com/mobile

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

The Politics of History and the Emergence of Fear as an Issue

Ah! Shades of Michael Crichton's STATE OF FEAR.

It's not easy, trying to understand the change going on around one at the present time. It's eerily dangerous and yet the destructive forces are not unleashed building up within many minds. People are seething, angry and frustrated. Time will tell how this anger will express itself, but the danger is that it will affect the youth, who do not know history and who will take matters into their own hands. The consequences will be the "smushing" of our fragile streams of independent thought and the foreshortening of our temporary period of democracy.

Finanical crisis! What is that? What just happened to the world economy? Who understands the political economy and sociology of what just happened, the irreversible bit, the bit that changes country topographies and the fortunes of large groups of people permanently? Why did it happen? Can it happen again? Can we trust our political leaders to correct the momentum of the financial changes that are now hitting everyone?

It's a double edged sword. The economy, I mean. On the one hand it promises so much and on the other there are conditions to it's working evenly. It never works fairly, but it should work evenly. I can voice the opinion that the workings of an economy is generally unfair. It is because every so often it follows a mind of it's own and takes away the vast amount of more evenly distributed wealth through hard work and technical progress and gives that wealth to a few who own key assets that produce very little wealth, but represent long term values.

The economy gives wealth to asset owners, a special group of asset owners normally, but occasionally a group that produces nothing other than the legalities of ownership. We have seen the social destruction in history before. did not understand it, and our predecessors came unstuck in revolution and violence. Yes, the cycle of history moving away from democracy to authoritarianism and power in the hands of a few. Yes! There is a cycle in the fortunes of man as Shakespeare wrote and we are but players on that great stage of social transformation.

Our world economy is being transformed by the consequences of American social change, the great striding forth of individualism that produced a strong cycle of political change, a great wind blowing democracy and then will blow centralism and control, as the fear and social pressures mount. What is happening is not a US-China process, but the effects of the great 2000 wind of US social change world wide. It is like a hurricane on hot seas that is sweeping the globe.

There is no real balance in a society or an economy, but rather numerous streams of processes of change, sometimes rapid and visible, and sometimes rapid and invisible. What we are presently experiencing is a mix of many very strong and very rapid powerful streams of change. We are seeing an attack on democracy unlike ever before.

Well, it would be more balanced to say that we never had so much democracy before. We never had so much technology racing away putting pressure on manufacturing processes. We never had so much pollution. So what can we make of it all? Do we see the emergence of anti-democratic forces and streams of negative social thought? What do you see around you? You are in the midst of an extraordinarily dangerous period of history, but you are sleepwalking through your chance to protect yourself!

We have large economies, many being poles apart in terms of their resources and social fabrics expreriencing rapid social and economic transformation. We have America, that great engine of technology creation chugging away happily and it's domestic finances in utter chaos. The world currency, the US dollar is still happily moving business along, but it is not business as usual. Why? Well, it is a world with too much unresolved debt and it is the outstanding debt that is mucking things up. By solving the debt crisis, we are engineering a reversal of democracy in that we are redistributing ownership of wealth way from the vast majority to the very few. This is a long term asset exchange driven economic transformation unlike the normal short term asset driven exchange economy that we are used to. That is why it's social consequences will be server and the pressures for bloodshed it will produce will be also so severe.

America is playing economics at the long end of it's asset portfolio and rather than build democracy when technology is pushing forward for democracy, it is building centralism and control of people. Anti-democratic forces constructed and given power through the rapid redistribution of legal wealth during the American melt down's refinancing operations threaten global security more than we see on the surface.

Our fragile democracies are based on a social contract of fairness. What we are seeing big time is an erosion of that social contract's validity.

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

Nero's Taunton Sports Wifi!

You may wonder why wifi is important or even coffee! I support both!!

Walk on a Devon Lane

This is Dartmouth! RT

View from Dartmouth Harbour

It's late afternoon and the sun is low. The harbour is quiet! RT

View from Dartmouth Harbour

We had some sunshine yesterday and a lovely walk near the castle! RT

Transparency of Service and Why International Standards are Failing .. The Poor Performance of Phone, Wifi, and Data Wireless All At The Same Time

Do you think that you are being over charged for Internet, phone and data services? I am not surprised!

We learned from the Apple iPhone 4 discussion that the performance measures we see on devices of our communication instruments can be not a mechanical result but a software one.

What we need is transparency, honesty, and return for our money in the form of standards that cannot be fiddled. Thus, if we do not receive service we don't have to pay for what we did not receive and the information on poor performance should be available for comparison purposes...no algorithms for service providers to fiddle.

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

How easily we discard our past!

That the Second World War defined the English as a people in a way no other event ever could, is undoubtedly true. That we are also mostly defined by our contemporaries is also very true. As we grow old those that can relate to the many things that we have as urgencies and priorities diminishes at an accelerating rate, so that if we are very old, as in the case of Eileen Nearne, it's almost strange for the young to realise we ever existed. We must trumpet our own horns while we live for once we are gone what we were or did for most part increasingly no longer has meaning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eileen_Nearne

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

Arthur wins hands down!

Arthur represents a brand of clothing growing in France. Very good
quality stuff too. Bamboo socks!

Visit:

Http://www.Arthur.tm.fr

September morning by the river on Lyon, France

Making way to England through France can be interesting if you take
breathers in places like Lyon. The river is awesome and the people
charming and friendly. The women are sexy and alluring! Coffee is
good and avenues wide enough to sling a hammer either side. Walks are
fab!

Visual gift for you Burt from Lyon France

This is a grand lattee Lyon style. They have a store here, possibly
one of a chain, called Arthur with loads of sheep faces stitched onto
very colourful clothes. The brilliance of the colours suggests a
focus on youth and health, comfort and affluence. Lyon is like a
second Paris, brilliant, busy, affiable, go ahead, ancient,
mysterious, earthy, warm and social, cuddly, all in one domain!

Wind power is a winner

The vote is in and wind power is here to stay. The only real questions are the forms it will take and who will see their way to participate. The design of wind capturing systems is sure to occupy the industry for some time as it seeks larger and larger economies of scale. Who will be tallest and largest and closest to the city?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/29/science/earth/29fossil.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

Caffee Latte from the Top of Europe

Yes! That's in Switzerland and wheras Swiss chocolat is second to
none, I dream of what I could do here on the Jungfraujoch with a
Starbucks.

Am I strange to think that even McCafe coffee tastes better than the
local standard? Not at all!

Why economics is bunkum!

Farms in the dairy industry in Europe are under threat of the economies of scale to be made from scaling up farming units to greater than 8,000 dairy cows.

Obviously, something is out of scale!  We have seen large scale farming in the wheat industry, pigs, beef, chickens, etc.  We have just experienced what scaling up can do in atomic weapons!  Sure man can achieve economies of scale but just as easily achieve economies of destruction, mass destruction!  

Human beings are willing to treat animals with about as much respect as they really would like to treat human beings.  Don't be surprised about where these trends of inhumanity to animals lead.  One knows that humans that become serial killers are frequently abusers of animals.  What about farmers that treat animals worse!? 

Yes, it is a dog eat dog world in which the only thing stopping people from killing people is the threat of death itself, while the only thing stopping people killing animals or enslaving them is nothing at all!

http://m.guardian.co.uk/?id=102202&story=http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/sep/22/farmers-cow-super-dairy

Greece - Just what we didn't want to know!

 People ask me what I think of the world financial crisis.  My answer is that it still is a hoard of very kind people sleepwalking into disaster.   Read the vanity fair article below and you get a glimpse of the depth of the problem.

Beware of Greeks Bearing Bonds | Business | Vanity Fair
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/10/greeks-bearing-bonds-201010?currentPage=all

(via Instapaper)

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends!  May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

Indian Manufacturer of Sewerage Plant and Equipment

laharia has left a new comment on your post "Re: South Grand 'Zone 3' Sanitary Sewage Collectio...": 

Sewage treatment plant and equipment- Delhi, India based manufacturer and supplier of sewage water treatment plant and sewage waste water treatment. 


Posted by laharia to Wooooooh's Stream <br>Sketches from Scratches at 10 September 2010 02:01

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends!  May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

President Obama, the Stem Cell, and the Price Tag of Redirecting America's Direction of Reforms

When we think back on the progress that President Obama has achieved, we will realise that America, the huge America has a momentum of it's own that once moving in a certain direction cannot be easily manoeuvred without great cost.  Just shifting America's direction of technological focus ever so slightly can cost billions.

In the late 1960's, America had the Thaliomide crisis which resulted from a company good at one technology, that of manufacture, trying to break into a market where another technology, that of detecting issues with drug use, came unstuck along with much of the US pharmaceutical industry.

We encouraged companies to engage in more basic research and found them wanting.  Very few major drug innovation came along after the 1960's.  The era of miracle drugs had passed and firms concentrated more on marketing and minor improvements and copy catting.  We are still in the doldrums.

When law and drug innovation intersect, we find that it is easier to forego the real sacrifice that true innovation requires.  Thus don't expect a revolution to come from stem cell research.  There are too many alternative less risky avenues that the drug companies can pursue and bad laws give them every excuse to stay with the status quo while racking up billions in profits just marketing me too or little risk products with dubious benefits.  Patents will be filed, but little innovation will come from American firms.  They are risk averse because the laws and judges encourage laziness.  

We, in turn, feel protected by the 'do nothing much' evolution of the industry for even though the profits to the drug companies are much too high and they spend far too much marketing  surpriseless products, we have our own solution.        

What we do is take all the risks ourselves experimenting with all the herbs and religious notions, and quantum magical solutions to what ails us medically.  We pass new laws to prohibit bad chemistry and we feel great comfort in slowing things down.  Well, things are evolving too fast aren't they.  So let's us take the risks, grandmother's way, use voodoo and yoga.  We will find the miracle approaches on our own.  We don't need innovative drug companies and doctors, heaven forbid, to tell us the way.   

The Covenant
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/09/06/100906fa_fact_boyer?printable=true

(via Instapaper)

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends!  May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

The Evolving Internet

When we think of the internet, we increasingly wonder how we survived without it.  Just deprive yourself of access for a week or more and you notice how much you have become emotionally attached.  The links of the Internet are like a family, a social grouping by which we can order our lives, feel good about ourselves, and participate meaningfully in a world that is evolving rapidly, perhaps too rapidly.  

We use the Internet to change ourselves emotionally.  Seeing images, communicating, actualising our talents for speech, art, writing, and gaming.  There is so much that the Internet provides that we assume that we are still detached.  

Occasionally, we may think of the Borg community of Star Trek, and for a moment realise that the Internet is evolving in the intensity as well as variety of personal experience that it generates and transfers.  

The Internet is more than exchange.  It is a medium of influence through which those groups who have influenced our thinking in the past will want to influence our thinking in the future.  Thus it is that that the Internet presents us with many challenges.

A Virtual Counter-Revolution
http://www.economist.com/node/16941635/print

(via Instapaper)

One has to be concerned for future youth and the degree to which the sense of emotional well being is influenced by the new Internet media.  Through one instrument so much in our lives can be defined.  It surprises us when another less attached to the Internet points out that we have that particular instrument of our choosing with us all the time and constantly use it, whether an iPhone, PC, iPad, or some other smart device.  It's a fact that parents see their children with an interactive toy as much now as with television.  

Combine the two and you see what remains dwindle.  Each individual links into their own worlds except that rather than being inside our heads these worlds are an extension of our realities.

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends!  May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

Amalfi Bay at Positano

The climb up was worth it for the view!

View of the Mediterranean at Positano

Sun trying hard to break through!

Positano Restaurant, Italy. ....

Walked to this perch well up on the hill. Very good viewof the bay at
Positano looking East. Will now eat.

Ced and Trace in Positano

Talking to my ghost is not so much fun as enjoying the company of
relatives in Italy!

Murder in the Park

This impressionist painting contained what looked like a murder in the park until I edited it out. Now the image is less exciting so I wonder whether the change was for the best.

No Sunset No Bother

We sometimes forget in the middle of summer how wonderful Canadian winters really can be. Looking out over Lake Huron, one might be forgiven for saying amen after every pleasurable walk. The winter cold, like the summer heat, has it's joys and we do well not to forget them. I find the winter season inspiring and stimulating. Of course, it is different from the summer heat, but certainly there to be enjoyed and no reason to get depressed as long as one gets vitamin D and omega 3 oils.

Winter sunsets

Summer is not the only season for beautiful sunsets. In the Canadian winter, there are often magnificent sunsets. I love a walk in the snowy woods following the sun down, then sensing the light that stays on after the sun has dipped below the horizon.

Light of Many Seasons

The light in winter time and summer time is not the same. In winter, the light is reflected off more objects bouncing many times through and about the snow. A room often is brighter and it is easier for me to paint pictures. Inevitably, writing and painting in summer or winter are very different and pleasurable experiences. Living in Canada and the UK alternatively allows me to experience the many different effects of light on my mood and impressions.

Reading is Good! Reading Harry Potter is better!

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I like to read and paint. In recent and for many years like many people my favourite series of books was the Harry Potter series. JK Rowland kept my imagination fired up in ways that was most wonderful. I would be exaggerating if I didn't say that her books were not of the sort one finds hard to put down. Truth be told, I am waiting for the point when I have forgotten the story line and can start reading the series again.

The Ubiquity of Environmental DisEconomics - The Case of Canadian Forest Destruction

It's so distressing, if you bother even the think about it for a minute.

Damn their eyes!  Why bother to think about it?

How can you possibly remain a proud Canadian, if you know what Canadians are being paid to do to their precious forests at a time when they really do know the damage they are doing!  You can't!  

You should be shitting your pants in anguish and shame.   Would you kill your mother land?  

Then, why continue to allow Canadians, and even encourage them to destroy your mother land and the precarious balance of the earth?   Who gains?   

The mining taxes are not sufficiently high, so Canadians don't gain.   

What a weakling of leadership, they do have that our Prime Minister can smile at this crime.    What smug smug wasters these leaders are!  What's his name?

"Let them eat cake!  Laissez manger gâteau!" said a famous Marie before her beheading.   So out of touch with new values, so vulnerable to the whirlwinds of social change.

Let's think about it... And think so more.  Damn, damn, damn... Why should I care anyway?

Canada is no longer a nation of common purpose!   

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends!  May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

What really can matter?

It's possibly trite to think we of the modern world know more about our state of existence than man of the Christian or Early Roman period.

Our personal hell is that we are on that path driven by technology which creates a universe that may deprive us of our destiny.

We see evidence of that in the choices already made that preclude future paths of world existence and happiness.

For example, should Hitler have not murdered so many wonderful people of Jewish descent our lives would almost certainly have been immensely richer.  

Our conscious universe is evolving into sadness as we are driven faster and faster into the emptiness of existence without the passion of the departed Jewish people.  Those whose lives were foreshortened would almost certainly have paved the way to solutions we now can only dream about and may never realise.  So it is true that the sins committed by Hitler may yet deal upon us the hells of all hells, and the revenge of those foreshortened may the shallowness of our existence and of these who follow blindly on.   

That we will never be conscious of those other possibilities shatters the depravity of our present trends of existence.  

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends!  May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

The Unfathomable Reaches of Men's Minds

You think that you know yourself. Well think again?

When Professor Penrose of Cambridge raised the question that men's minds might reach into the very depths of unseen dimensions, he opened a pandora's box of such hidden rooms and deposits, that man cannot be man in order to comprehend.

When the most minute of entities becomes a playground of our fantasies, so do we create the very largess of our realms. By making operable what is small, we open space to larger and larger forms of realisation. Space is after all, the place where man observes and by increasing space by reducing the scale of man's operations, man creates enormous playgrounds of existence and rationality.

Were we reduced to the size of a pin head billions and billions more of sentient beings could realise their conscious lives and be self fulfilling.

We thus enlarge space by reducing our scale of operations, as well as by increasing our scale of operations. Were we also to reduce down to the world of probability and size that the exclusion principle no longer applies, we have infinite space and worlds where the capacity for self realisation is so great as to be unimaginable. Yes, we are within grasp of the unfathomable reaches of sentient men's minds.

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

The Desperation that Leads to Destruction

Man has the capacity for ever larger and larger projects and enormous feats of engineering prowess. As mistakes of the past contribute increasingly to desperate measures to bring about a redress, the mistakes of the future mount in larger and larger scales. Like building ever larger pyramids that cost a society more and more effort, the monuments of engineering in the future will dwarf imaginings of the past.

By this logic the search for tinier and tinier places to put charges that will create massive structures of dependent logic will overwhelm our imagination.

What remains, however, at the end of the day, is that the wrong mathematics will prevail unless soundly chosen from nature's repertoire of proven tools of construction.

It will become clearer and clearer how insufficient man's capacity has become compared tom the challenge of the 'Gods' of ages who have relied on natural processes to discern the most reliable mathematical bases of engineering feats.

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

Canada's Boreal Forest - How Canada Destroys Our Future Forests in a Blink of an Eye

If you think that the roads being built in Ontario are worth what is happening to places elsewhere in Canada, think again!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2010/sep/07/tarnished-earth-oil-sands?&CMP=EMCENVEML1452

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

Just Groups of Words - A Ghost of an App by Spud Pickles - Wiseacreing about the Meaning of it All

Suppose that each morning you received an envelope containing a collection of english words in different colours. You are told only that the words are not random, but that whatever produced them is like a special machine that can be used by whatever exists in what is referred to as a flux. The flux is influenced by a special being or multiple beings and it is named the quantum flux. Quantum relates to the notion of being very tiny and to being a source of fluctuations in things much larger.

What would you think of the possibility that the words could have meaning, have special meaning, or potential meaning for you.

Obviously, they will have meaning being English words.

Less obvious, though very likely, they will have special meaning.

Even less obvious, though even more likely, they will have potential meaning.e

Thus, it is that the iPad/iPhone app by Spud pickles, a ghost machine, is probably a winner.

Whenever, we consider randomness, we face the issue that what we are dealing with is a stream. No streams can ever be truly random in a cause and effect world. However, if the world has regions that are not cause and effect, we may not even think of it as a world. So it is that we are in a nether land, a land between.

Our notions of randomness are fundamentally flawed. We see very partially what is around us. That us what the Ghost is telling us.

Our reality is that we exist in a completely predetermined world in which we have the illusion of indeterminateness and randomness. That our world was not always predetermined may be speculated, but it is inherent in our world that all is done. The story is spun. We are what we are and we believe otherwise because to do so continues the illusion so necessary for us to live one of our stories that of our being in a position to continuously choose.

Like the interpretation of words from the ghost machine, we can choose in a limited way which path of our world to follow. The beauty of our illusion is such that we are never told the meaning, but derive it through the pursuit of our understandings of the streams that flow to us. We, in effect, are flawed Bayesian processors that tell our consciousness continuously that given such and such then such and such.

Gurdieff, the teacher, referred to this thought process when carried out between individuals as wiseacreing. We continuously wiseacre about the streams flowing at us. Our problem is that there is not really a flow. The flow is predetermined matter that already exists and is not random, but completely determined. No room for ambiguity there.

We do have choices and are in universes of choices made for us. That we may experience much in other 'life streams' is to me apparent, but I cannot think how you might ever come to think that except in this life by reading my writing.

My thoughts about the universes can in no way limit your realities and experiences, but may alter your explorations temporarily.

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

Does the World End in 2012?

It's fashionable in some circles to claim that our doom is at hand and with it those elements of civilisation that we find most disagreeable. There is a certain comfort in thinking, even believing, in the possibility that the end of world is nigh within less than two years. We are at the cusp, it is stated with great confidence and woe betide those who claim otherwise. Can't you see all the signs that tell us the dangers we face and the forces which will tear at the fabric of our societies. And, so the story comes from people who would will us to believe in the destruction of our world.

Such pronouncements have their place as an expression of people's amazement at events reported through third parties and spread as mantras for living life to the full in the here and now. Plan not for your plans will come to nothing as this earth is torn by destruction. Should you choose to believe in such pronouncements, you can party with abandon enjoying the delights of the flesh without feeling the guilt of your super ego's remonstrations to calm and more deliberative action of a preservative kind to maintain balance and sobriety.

The truth is that we cannot say whether as an individual our worlsd might not be shattered by the dangerous forces that will inevitably sweep through the world in 2012. That the world is or will be any different from what it is or was in the past we can be sure that the answer is no. No the world or worlds will not be destroyed in 2012, just as the worlds were not destroyed in previous speculations of its coming end. No cataclysmic fire will blow us all to smithereens. Some fires may end a few of us, but for the majority, 2013 will be a period of immense joy and growing security as we turn the tide of our failings and increase the abutments to a strong and definable future.

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

Children of the Sea

Yesterday, I saw the youth of Positano! A lad of six perched on the front of his father's boat happily shouting to his dad pronouncements about the wonderful experience of a life divided between the way of the water and the way of land. Clearly, here was a lad learning the fluid life of the sea. He was obviously becoming a meaningful member of a largish Italian family for whom the life of the waves was a destiny and calling not to be questioned but delighted in. The enormous pleasure to be derived from this way of self determination was unquestionable. This is a way of life that has survived the millennia, a way of existing between the many forces shaping a community. Fortunate, are they for whom this way of life is possible.

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

The World of Give and Take

Rising early in the small coastal village of Positano, Italy, I am waxing philosophical! From a balcony of a villa overlooking the Mediterranean, the sea stretches flat and peacefully into the distance while a high curved landscape defines a basin against which small waves lap continuously, their gentle rush echoing into the reaches. Yes, here it is that one can imagine a man of the sea, harpoon in hand setting the stage of all things maritime.

Yesterday, we took a cruise to Amalfi from where as history tells us many an adventure into the Mediterranean was launched. The now familiar cross of the Hospitaliers, the Maltese cross, hangs high decorating the narrow corridors of mysterious stone carved out of the mountains that fall away into the depths of the salty waters. The village by the sea is a curious blend of vibrant enterprise and exploratory enthusiasm. A strong rocky and massive church holds the secrets to the peoples strength of character as generation after generation took their confidence from a faith based on suffering and painful self sacrifice.

The people are part of a civilisation based precariously on a balance between what was feared and what was trusted, a confidence arising from an assurance that to do right by the men of faith would bring about the certainty of survival in a landscape continuously pressed between competing mountains of water and sea, one soft and giving yet merciless in it's rules, the other hard and taking requiring little more than the application of strength and determination. Two world exist here side by side, a world of uncertainty, risk and massive reward from the depths of the waters to the fortunes of the distant climes, set against a harsh but more predictable world of calculation and application of will from faith in the goodness of higher authority.

Occasionally, now a cock will crow or a driver will toot.

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

Brand New Webpage from Woooosh | Wuhlax's Blog

http://wuhlax.wordpress.com/?p=3&preview=true

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

Doug Bonesteel - Candidate for Councillor - Ward 2 ... Lambton Shores / Grand Bend

I asked Doug Bonesteel some questions.

Hi Doug!

I have a few questions of you regarding issues:

What is your position with regard to the proposed sewerage system for Grand Bend and Southcott Pines?

What is your position with regard to commercialisation of the Grand Bend beach area?

What is your vision of the future for Grand Bend?

Thank you,

Arthur Lake

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends!  May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

Reply from Doug:

Arthur, thank you for your email. I'll try to be as brief as possible with my answers to your questions.

1. Sewers for Zone 3

As a member of the original Zone 3 Community Group I stand by their mission statement of finding an ecologically appropriate and sustainable waste management system for this area through an accountable, public process. We should continue to test the groundwater and initiate a septic inspection program that makes sense. I would also suggest that we ask the Ontario Ministry of the Environment to have one of their hydrogeologists conduct unbiased, blind groundwater testing both in Zone 3 and the village to compare groundwater results. Perhaps, this would shed some light on the need for a collections system in the first place. I am firmly opposed to the low pressure grinder pump system that the municipality has suggested as the preferred collection system in their Environmental Assessment application.

2. Commercialism of the Grand Bend Beach

I believe that the people most impacted by council decisions should have input well before any decision is made, circumstance permitting. There are varying degrees of commercial activities that could be permitted in public places e.g. would people object to a single hot dog vendor on the beach as opposed to the volleyball proposal. The entire PVB volleyball proposal should have been handled much more effectively. Municipalities should communicate any business decisions affecting the lifestyles of their citizens well before any decisions to proceed are made to the point of no return. This is where you can connect people back to their community. I believe that the municipality needs to consult with the public about their vision of what recreational and commercial activities they feel are suitable for a public beach (by laws permitting). People in various communities need to be contacted on a regular basis to determine how they feel their municipal government is performing and demonstrate that they have listened to what has been said. Elected officials and bureaucrats should never take their ratepayers for granted. I have a suggestion in my last answer as to how the next council can accomplish this.

3. Vision for the Future of Grand Bend

I would hope that no one would disagree that we live in a very special place in Ontario. Like anything of value it needs to be cared for and tended to as a communal venture. I think the vision for Grand Bend should come from the local people. As an elected official it's my job to see that their wishes are carried out. I believe that regular town hall meetings could connect ratepayers back to their council. Council needs to hear how they are doing, and not just every four years. I've knocked on hundreds of doors in Ward 2 to date (it's my goal to knock on every door before the ballots are mailed) and I've met a lot of interesting people. Many of these people have indicated that they would be willing to serve as volunteers on advisory committees for the municipality to deal with matters in economic development, recreation, finance, waste management etc. This is a meaningful way of connecting citizens back to their local government. We should never adopt an attitude that we don't have time to deal with our residents' concerns. That's what local, grassroots government is all about. I have heard a number of people suggest that a shuttle service on main street in the village would alleviate car crowding, noise and air quality, parking issues (including metered parking rates), create summer jobs and add a carnival atmosphere to the town (it works well in Denver for instance). Others have commented on the need to have store fronts and signage in the village reflect a consistent theme.

Arthur, we could chat for hours on all of these issues. I hope that my answers have given you some indication of the type of councillor that I will be if elected. We all need to work hard to keep this special place an attractive and affordable one in which to live. Thank you for your interest.

Doug

Hi Doug!

I like your answers which come close to what I had hoped.  Would you mind if I posted them on a friendly blog page.

Thank you,

Arthur Lake

Doug's Response:

By all means, Arthur. I appreciate you asking in advance. Openness, transparency and accountability begin at home. Thanks for taking the time to care.

Doug

Attitudes towards Pollution and the Quality of the Environment

As one gets older, there is a sense of detachment that is often difficult to describe except that it is the absence of the rush or high of youth. When we are young, our attitudes to messiness and being dirty relate more to what we are about than to what we remember as "shoulds", those things our parents tell us we ought to do. We are more likely to have our own "shoulds" as standards that young people feel and sense.

I can remember effluent of colourful water flowing into the local river. It was beautiful, but I knew there was something wrong about it. Essentially, the adults had not got their "shoulds" right. We read that young people are keeping youthful attitudes long into their adult years. Does this mean that their attitudes towards the environment never grow beyond what they were as children, being into whatever it was without thinking about consequences for others very much, or will young people bring a fresh approach to their environment by being observant of what makes it messy and dead looking. Turds floating in the river or harbour waters for example. How do they get there? We know they should not be there, but have the adults got their "shoulds" wrong again.

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

Syd Fletcher Mayoral Candidate for Lambton Shores, Ontario a place that includes the community of Grand Bend

Syd Fletcher is a candidate for Mayor of Lambton Shores, a city that is not a city, but a municipality that is a strange concoction of different communities, some that go together and others that seem strange together. It is a home to the environmentally friendly and to those who should be more environmentally friendly, a place of joy and community, and a place where wild animals meet humans on their front door?

Syd posts his email address and invites questions, so I thought I would ask him what was on my mind at the time ... Yesterday.

I am pleased that this candidate has ticked my boxes for what I am presently thinking about commercialisation and sewer systems.

Good on him!

RT, a nickname I use because I like art and my name is Arthur. I am also known as Woosh to some, since I am a bit of a head full....

On 30-Aug-10, at 11:47 AM, Woosh wrote:

Syd!

Thank you for putting yourself forward as a candidate for Mayor of Lambton Shores.

As a potential voter, I would like to know what your positions are regarding commercialisation of the front at Grand Bend and regarding the development of a sewerage system for Grand Bend.

Any information you can give of your vision for the future of Lambton Shores would be welcome.

Thank you,

Woosh

On 30 Aug 2010, at 03:11 PM, Syd Fletcher <promise@xcelco.on.ca> wrote:

Hi Arthur:

Re: Commercialization of the waterfront at Grand Bend

Commercial interests should not be allowed on the waterfront. It needs to be left open to the public.

One time events such as the Summer Games sailboat racing should be allowed as they would draw people to the area.

If the Ministry of the Environment mandates a sewer system for subdivisions in Lambton Shores then we would have no choice in the matter and would have to proceed.

There should absolutely be no thought of a 'grinder' system - ever. It is a poor solution at best.

My understanding from Carl Belkie is that the Ministry has no intention of mandating a sewer system. I also understand from the meeting on Thursday night that the present council has applied for a grant to do the sewer. If that does come through (and I cannot believe that that will happen before the new council comes in) then it would be the new council's position to say politely, "We made an error in applying for this grant. We will not be accepting it. We have found that we cannot afford to put up the balance of money that would be needed for the project."

I believe that we need to take a very strong look at the process of consultation that is being used to make decisions about major projects such as the sewage system and the water lines which were put into the former Bosanquet Township area. Firms which have a vested interest in proceeding with a project should not be allowed to be the main 'opinion' on said projects.

We need to set up a system of community committees which would (in conjunction with council) come to a consensus on future projects - e.g. if a committee of residents and business owners had had appropriate say in the design of the main street in Grand Bend, I have no doubt that it would look considerably different as opposed to those who like things to 'look pretty' instead of 'pretty and utilitarian' for the people who are using them.

Finally, we need a council and bureaucracy which understands the difference between the 'letter of the law and the intent of the law'. The example I use here is in the treatment of the young couple who were starting up a trucking business just to the north of Forest. The planner told them that they had to pave all around the building and put in curbs. They asked if they could be given a couple of years grace, until the business was started. They were told, "No, it has to be done right now." They took the issue to the OMB which agreed totally with them and said that the municipality was being high-handed with them.

I'm hoping that the new council will begin to deal with issues using common sense, thinking more about people than about projects.

Good day to you sir! Hopefully this helps you understand where I stand on some of the current issues.

Respectfully,
Syd Fletcher

On 30-Aug-10, at 9:10 PM, Woosh wrote:

Hi Syd!

I like your answers and would ask whether I might post them on my blog with favourable comments by myself!

Arthur

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

Syd responded:

Certainly.
Syd

May the road rise to meet you
May the wind be always at your back
May the sun shine warm upon your face
May the rain fall upon your fields
And until we meet again
May He hold you in the palm of his hands
(Irish blessing)

Syd's blessing above.

And mine follows:

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

One can buy UBS 3 external hard disks in Paris, but where is it in North America?

Why does innovation these days take place where you least expect it, well, at least, out side of America?

http://www.pcworld.com/article/186877/hps_first_usb_30_laptop_ships_others_on_the_way.html

http://www.trustedreviews.com/laptops/news/2010/02/08/Dell-Unveils-First-USB-3-0-Laptop/p1

Oh! You may not have heard about USB 3?

http://www.eetimes.com/electrical-engineers/education-training/tech-papers/4201089/USB-Explained-An-Introduction-to-USB-and-Its-Future

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

Intel's Strategic Changes (Health, Security, Mobility, Smartphones)

In the early 1980s, Intel and Microsoft had a strategic alliance that has done the companies proud. We are now 30 years on looking at another wave of innovation in the industry that has progressed from awkward boxes on one's desk to smiling videos in one's hand. The future has health needs of the world written all over it. So, is Intel devising a winning strategy to bridge the gap between the many sick around the world and the medical professionals. Only time will tell.

The great chip maker Intel is moving forward with the times by implementing an integrative strategy:

http://newsroom.intel.com/community/intel_newsroom/blog/2010/08/02/ge-intel-to-form-new-healthcare-joint-venture

http://newsroom.intel.com/community/intel_newsroom/blog/2010/08/19/intel-to-acquire-mcafee

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703618504575460721131232894.html?mod=djemalertDEALS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infineon_Technologies

http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4205890/Intel-likely-buyer-Infineon-wireless-semiconductors

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

A Review of Superconnect a book by Richard Koch and Greg Lockwood

After a few chapters of this book, I was saying to myself that the concepts presented were in other books that I have read. That being so, the book is an excellent collection of key concepts which most people would like to understand about networks, hubs, connectors, super connectors and hubs, etc.

The book is easy to read in a few days. It provides a huge number of everyday examples so the average reader will have no trouble understanding the ideas presented.

It will make a good reference book to be read several times.

Beneficial reading. Buy the book or get it out from your local library!

http://www.superconnect.org/

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/superconnect-by-richard-koch-and-greg-lockwood-1989586.html

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Superconnect-Power-Networks-Strength-Links/dp/1408701715

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

The Gordon Brown Smile

We all love to watch politicians because of the antics they get up to in pushing forward their agendas. In the UK the Gordon Brown smile is famous and produces spasms of stomach wrenching laughter as people try to cope with a very human reaction to a politician many began to loath:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/29/bush-white-house-grave-doubts-brown

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

A World of Inequality between Sexes! Can love be present?

Such we read about the shoddy and often violent way that men treat women that we must wonder whether much love is actually present in these societies.

Were a "man" to love a woman, he would wish and allow for her to develop to "full human potential" with all that that means in participation within the community, to even become a "leader" within society.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/29/afghanistan-election-campaigners-shot-dead?CMP=EMCGT_300810&CMP=EMCNEWEML961

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

The Oil Industry's Quest to Leverage Technology for Oil Reaches Dangerous Extremes

As in the case of the financial sector with it's foray into more and more leveraged products, the oil industry is leveraging it's technology to dangerous limits.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/30/business/energy-environment/30deep.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

Leveraging involves the taking of risks by using methods vulnerable to catastrophe. For a while leveraging may work, but ultimately it is likely to produce the monster disasters like that witnessed in the Gulf, international banking and in the US property markets.

Firms leverage first because they can and they can do so without accounting for the full risks. Because returns are very high and can cover penalty payments when things go wrong, it is still attractive to leverage beyond present boundaries. Were the external costs properly assessed and those charged to the investors, it would not necessarily reduce the amount of leveraging because of the second factor which is that those that leverage are playing with other peoples money. Accountability is secondary!

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

The key variable in determining whether a septic system serves well could be the size of lot on which the system is placed.

http://cincystreetcar.wordpress.com/2009/01/26/infrastructure-allows-greater-density/

Let in the sewerage system engineer and let in the cookie cutter home developer who cares little about the environment and produces homes to the minimum standards. Noise and light pollution results as tightly packed communities experience the trauma of citification, places where people don't know each other and don't talk to their neighbours that often.

http://www.ccwpc.org/index.php/cape-cod-water-protection-collaborative/about-the-collaborative/78-comparison-of-costs-for-wastewater-management-systems-applicable-to-cape-cod

Developers with limited amounts of land want to pack people into small lots and will almost invariably call for a sewerage system because of the environmental damage small lots and household density will cause. A prelude to packing a region more densely could be to introduce a sewerage system in order to allow a developer to pack people together in tiny box like homes rather than spread them out within the woods.

Licensing systems can provide a means of thinning out population density in order to preserve natural habitats and the environment.

http://www.water.rutgers.edu/Fact_Sheets/fs533.pdf

The profit incentive thus for engineering consultants getting business from governments in municipalities, from other engineering companies and from land developers or owners of smaller lots will be to push for sewerage systems.

These groups will raise their profitability because of economies of scale. In other words the more densely they can pack houses together the more profit they make and the less space the household owner has to grow a family.

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11241&page=54

Sewer systems are thus bad for home development where the family is trying to enjoy the environment and the natural preservation. They destroy the environment by packing too many households into too small a space. Rather than leave a beautiful environment for families to enjoy developers create compounds of houses with small gardens and poor outlooks. Trees are cut down, small lakes are filled in and nature leaves. Small birds have to depart because they cannot hear other birds talking to them. All nature is squeezed out as the bulldozer changes the environment into a densely packed cookie cutter development.

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.