Energy Policy

Side note: Between the economic news, spending too  much time on The Oil Drum, and listening to David Copperfield on audiobook as I walk home from work each night, things have gotten a bit gloomy.  If you have any suggested books, movies, or websites that are more cheerful let me know (or if Copperfield's situation improves as I get in to the book, let me know -- just don't give me too much data to spoil the story)

If you are tired of the "Drill, Baby, Drill" approach to energy policy that has been offered up recently, I want to pass on two alternative viewpoints.

The first is also highly political.  Just as "Drill, Baby, Drill" originated from the Republican convention this year, Montana governor, Brian Schweitzer, engaged the Democratic convention this year.  YouTube has the entire speech, if you would like to hear it (as it is the entire speech it is highly political, so viewer be warned).  Notice that he doesn't call for us to stop drilling completely -- they have increased the amount of energy extraction in Montana.  (and yes, I hate his use of the term energy independence)

Those looking for something less political might want to turn to the good folks at Google.  Yes, the company that helped us find our way through the Internet now has their own energy plan for the US.

I am glad I don't have to write the energy policy for the US.  But I know that we need one.  We waited too long to deal with Wall St.  We can't afford to wait too late to deal with this issue.

Trust Busting

The public trust has been busted by companies labeled "too large to fail".

Maybe it is time to adjust our antitrust laws. (I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, so this might not actually fall under antitrust laws, although I suspect they do). I suggest that we create rules to create any one company from becoming "too large to fail." Once a company reaches that size it must break up into smaller companies. If the situation changes, the companies could merge back together.

I realize this is highly reactive, it does not deal with whatever the next problem on Wall Street will be. And as with many well intentioned laws it may cause unintended harm to some organizations (I would hope not as bad as SOX). But even with that, I think it is worth considering.

What do you think?

-- Andy

Something's Got to Give

Gasoline shortages are here.  We are lucky as these are only temporary shortages due to refinery shut downs from the hurricanes.  But they will be good to learn from when shortages become more frequent, more wide spread, and longer.

NBC did a 2 minute piece on the gas shortage on the Nightly News.  The  comment from one driver really spoke to me.  "Something's got to give."

I think she is right.  But I don't think she would like my answer.  I think that what is going to have to give our our lifestyles and our attitudes.  We can't keep spreading out into sprawlville.  We need to get used to our food arriving from local sources, and paying more for it (and wishing we hadn't paved over the best farmland acres to plop down ticky tacky houses).   I suspect there will be some tough times ahead.

Insight for the Day

I was listening to TWiT today (http://www.twit.tv/twit) and there was an interesting comment that was worth sharing.  I believe it was from Jason Calicanis or Andrew Horowitz.  I am sure it is not an exact reflection on the TWiT comments  -- I report on it from my own perspective, and add my own little rant in the final paragraph.

The comparison was between our current financial mess and youth sports. 

Youth sports have dissolved into the mindset of: "everyone is a winner -- you all get trophies."  We don't want to damage the egos of our little ones (we also tend to be over protective in keeping them from physical pain too, but that is a post for another day)

Wall Street seems to be heading the same direction.  "It's OK that you lost billions of dollars.  Don't feel bad.  It's not your fault that you gave money to someone with no chance of ever paying you back for a house worth less than the person paid for it.  Here, have a nice severance package -- it will make you feel better."

Parents may be able to coddle their children for a while (and maybe keep them as children for a while longer if the coddling keeps the child from maturing).  But Uncle Sam is an old man who is already deeply in debt.  Sometime (and sometime soon) he is going to have to admit to his Wall Street boyz that he can't bail them out.  That they need to grow up, become men, and take responsibility for themselves.

-- Andy

Missed Opportunity

NBC covered something on Nightly News tonight that Peak Oil folks have been discussing for a while -- our infrastructure is crumbling.  Actually, a friend of mine (I have no idea if she is part of the Peak Oil crowd or not) was the first to fill me in years ago.

The issue goes beyond roads and bridges.  It is also water & sewer, electrical grid, schools, the list goes on.

But for driving, let's make this clear, bumpy roads can lead to car damage (it certainly leads to wear and tear) -- it makes owning and operating a car more expensive.

How could we have avoided this?  What was our missed opportunity?  We could have taxed ourselves.  By raising the gas tax years ago we would have been putting that money into our own coffers instead of into the coffers of countries that don't really care for us.  At $2/gallon, adding say a $0.20/gallon tax, people would have had a fit and politicians heads would have rolled.  But here we are clearly marching towards $5/gallon gas, and the roads are still crowded. 

Taxing ourselves would have gotten us away from the disaster of SUVs more quickly as well (although at something closer to a $2/gallon gas tax than a $0.20/gallon gas tax).  The big three auto makers would never admit it, but a gradual and planned increase in the price of gas via a gas tax would have allowed them to transition away from the SUV market in a more orderly format, which would have been great for their economy, as well as ours.  It takes a lot of time to retool a plant -- and right now we really need plants that can turn out more busses (and rail cars).

-- Andy

P.S. A road near my house was recently repaved, and they made it worse than it was before.  So increased cost does not (necessarily) equate to better quality.

P.P.S. H St (along with a number of other DC streets) is notorious for being ripped up and fixed, only to be ripped up again.  This is done as the utility companies have no sense of coordination with each other.  It is a major detriment to all involved.  If the cot of repaving is increasingly expensive, would this push them to be better at coordinating.

A New Question

Say someone was to remove energy efficient compact florescent light bulbs, and replace them with incandescent light bulbs.

Would it be better to call them:

Bjorn Lomborg light bulbs
or
Jay Hair light bulbs

I suspect the latter is more appropriate as Lomborg would probably say it was a waste of money to replace them.

(An apology to both people I referred to: I don't know how to get the slash through the o in Bjorn's name. I also realize I should not speak poorly of the dead.)

Everything Must Change

I really don't understand change for the sake of change. Yes, there is good change and there is bad change (even if I don't own a car, I agree that if traffic lights never changed their would be problems)

In my mind there are some things that shouldn't change. The should remain the same. In perpetuity if you will.

Today I learned that there is a good chance that the name of a periodical that I read will change. No great answer given for a name change. In fact the new name (or potential new name) sounds fairly pathetic.

My only guess is that they are dumbing it down so that the comatose that can only understand monosyllabic words can at least read the title.

I know I will be less likely to what was once a quality publication if it has a stupid name.

I am mad at you, ASI

Those of you who know me from work will be shocked at the title of this post. Good. I hope I shock people at ASI as well (someone there must read blogs).

I have spent many years of my life working with iMIS trying to make it work well for my organization and defending it against many in my organization who would be happy to see it gone.

Now they have a new version which has some improvements. But they have a new pricing structure which is just outrageous. It is beyond my comprehension, and way beyond my budget.

I feel like this is all a big game. Get me so dependent on a set of technologies that switching would be difficult, and then jack up the price to stay with what I have.

Safe and Secure?

...I hope I actually just did not hear this correctly...

On the local news tonight, they had a piece on keeping young ones safe when traveling. It seems that everything in a hotel room poses a great risk to children.

But the one that got me was a suggestion to put tape over the electrical outlets. Not to keep the electricity from leaking out, but to keep children from hurting themselves by inserting a coin or knife.

Knife? If your children are playing with knives, then you have greater safety issues to deal with.

As a child I survived many hotel rooms without having the outlets covered with tape, but I certainly never remember playing with a knife.

-- Andy

If the stations posts their piece, I will try to link to it.

Quick Question

OK, this has been on my mind too much, so I just want to get it out there.

Are consultants more like death eaters or more like dementors?

I have my thoughts, but I would like to hear yours.

Mixed Messages

(Yes I am really behind on posting. Sorry!)

So on the forth of July I saw something really confusing. It was a Hummer, but it was flying an American flag. Maybe it was an attempt at humour, or maybe it was to make people stop and think (or blog as the case might be). To me though it just seemed like a mixed message. If you are driving a Hummer, shouldn't you really be flying an Al-Qaeda flag*? Now that would help reinforce who your allegiance.

This leads into an article in The Washington Post about a man who had his Hummer trashed by some group of people. (oddly enough someone labeled those who damaged the vehicle as eco-terrorists, when it is fairly obvious that it is the other way around. It is the morons who drive Hummers that are terrorizing the ecosystem). The article pointed out that the owner wanted it part because the company he is starting is "image based". Another article then goes on to say that rather than learning from this experience that this might not be such a great image, he is going to fix it up and move out of the District.

-- Andy

* It seems that there is a flag of Jihad, which I guess is the closest thing to an Al Qadea flag. From what I can tell they did not waste money on consultants for their logo or colours, or fonts. there are a lot of groups that could learn a thing or two from that.

Why Even Bother

Yes, it has been a long time since I posted. Of course since you are using an RSS reader, it doesn't really matter, because it alerts you to my new posts.

Anyway, I wanted to comment on my July 4 experience. After being kicked off the National Mall (technically not allowed on the Mall) for a rain storm (a grand 0.1 inch (0.25 cm)), I headed home to make dinner rather than spend it at one of the regional offerings on the Mall (yes, I am sure the vendors were just as pleased as I was to be kicked off the Mall).

I came back to the Mall for the fireworks. But what caught my attention more than the fireworks were the cell phones. Yes, rather than watch the main attraction there were people yakking away on their phones.

I don't own one of these infernal devices, so I just don't get it. It seems that people are more connected to their phones and therefore totally disconnected to the world around them. I know that we all have times when we want to not pay attention to the world going around us, but I have never seen it manifested as well as when I see someone jabbering away at their phone. I can not figure out what could be so important to talk about that you would need to disconnect from friends or family around you to attend to your cell phone.

Even worse is the idea of traveling somewhere for a specific event (such as the fireworks) only to not pay attention to it.

"Inside Children"

I read an article in The Washington Post yesterday on "inside children" (children who don't go outside to play and experience nature), and I wasn't sure what to make of it.

(warning: long and rambling)

Yes, I do think it is horrible that children are not getting out and playing and really getting a chance to commune with nature. But of course a number of other thoughts ran though my head at the same time.

I spent tons of time outdoors when I was a child, but did not really spend it in a natural environment, and yet turned out to be an advocate for protecting the environment and protecting open space, natural places, etc. Is there a difference between spending time outdoors and spending time in a natural environment?

One of the directions I am trying to go here is to say that I lived in a community that seemed well designed for playing outside. No, we did not each have vast backyards to play in (having a house with a vast backyard seems to be a factor in a lot of the mcMansion sprawl we have to put up with these days, as if if using a riding lawnmower was a real way to connect to nature). By living in a community where all the houses were compact and right next to each other, it was always easy to find other children around to go play with. The community was laid out well enough that no child needed to be driven around by a parent to gain access to other children. In many modern developments it is hard for one child to meet up with other children, houses can be spread further apart, and poor designs, like those wretched cul de sacs make it hard to get from one block to the next.

If children are not going to go outside, will developers give up on the wasteful ways of sprawl and start building compact smarter growth again?

So that is a long way of saying that we are designing neighborhoods that help make the situation worse. And if that wasn't enough, when poor development it is even harder to get to nature for those times when that is really what you want to do. I can't imagine not having access to a park via bike or mass transit. How can a kid really experience nature if they are always dependent on Mommy or Daddy to take them to nature?

This of course leads to another issue: Fear Factor.

It seems that when I was a child most children were given a lot more free reign (the exception being this young girl that lived down the street from me (Macy, I think), who wasn't even allowed to cross Drury Lane). Even at a fairly young age I was able to go (I assume I had permission) to the five and dime, which was beyond city limits (trust me, I made that sound more impressive than it really was).

Yet I don't think as many children would be given the same latitude in this day and age. Parents are worried that bad things will happen to their children and don't want to let them be outside without supervision. the general statistics are that children really aren't in greater danger, but that the bad incidents are more hyped, creating a greater sense of fear. At my elementary school, we were taught how to be smart about situations (don't get in the car with someone you don't know) and taught some basics on what to do if you end up in a bad situation. But we were never taught to be afraid of being outside. I wish I knew how to collectively pull our country out of fear mongering.

Just some of my initial thoughts.

-- Andy

More Jargon to Kill

I am happy to kill off jargon that comes from consultants and spokes drones that sounds like this:

Yang and Decker to Focus on Realizing Yahoo!'s Strategic Vision by Accelerating Execution, Further Strengthening Leadership and Fostering a Culture of Winning

It sounds like it was cribbed from Dilbert. How do people who write this sleep at night?

-- Andy

Caught in My Own Trap

So two days ago I say that jargon can be good, right?

Yesterday afternoon I get really upset by something I read. Foiled by jargon. I take the phrase in what I am reading literally and it upsets me. Later someone tells me that it is actually jargon and the literal meaning is not the meaning i would have guessed. And since the word is jargon I am unable to find a good definition on the web to better understand the correct use of the term.

So maybe there are only certain times when jargon is good. Maybe I am not as smart as I think I am am.

Bummer

-- Andy

Paraphrasing Gordon Gekko

"Jargon, for lack of a better word, is good. Jargon is right, jargon works. Jargon clarifies, cuts through..."

I have been thinking about jargon lately and it helped to see a recent article by John C. Dvorak: Down With Dumbing Down.

I think he is right to criticize newspapers for avoiding jargon, and generally not respecting the intelligence of their readers. Isn't it good to enhance ones vocabulary? Shouldn't one who reads a newspaper generally have access to a dictionary?

Dvorak notes that jargon is often more precise, and often shorter. I would accurate.

Some reason examples were given to me as a way to avoid jargon. And in those cases the "more user friendly" method was often longer and less accurate. More open for interpretation. Of course in this post-Clinton era even the definition of the word "is" is open for interpretation.

Legal and scientific issues would seem to me to really important times to use jargon for precision and accuracy. Particularly legal issues that deal with perpetuity.

Yes, there are times when removing jargon can help clarify. But a well written piece can help define a term, and use it in context, and respect the reader's intelligence.

I think attempting to remove jargon can end up going the same path as over editing -- removing all meaning.

Thoughts?

Speaking of Criminals...

...any member of Congress that thinks repealing or suspending the federal gas tax, should be considered a criminal.

(Sorry for the odd title, I was just working on an email about crime/criminals)

Blogging for an Intern

I understand that some organizations are hiring interns to blog for them for the Summer. I have mixed feeling on this.

I can see that the benefits could be great for the Intern -- great exposure. And if done well could be great for the organization*

But there are serious downsides. How can this be an authentic voice from the organization if it is not someone who has worked there? If the intern has been tightly connected to the organization or its products, then this could help, but is still not really a blog from the inside.

How much of a chance will the intern have to get inside the organization? If they don't already have a blogger, then will they be ready to hand power over to an intern? Or will the intern be forced to rely on the press releases and over-polished messages that come down from marketing? that wouldn't be good for either organization or intern.

Will someone in the position of intern really be able to call the organization out when it screws up? After all he or she wants to leave a good impression for the sake of job searching after the internship/graduation. And it is hard for an organization to deal with a newbie telling them they screwed up. I about had a fit when a new staff person told me an IT policy we had was bad, and other coworkers have been stressed by criticism of new colleagues as well.

What are your thoughts

-- Andy

*The organization I work for unfortunately is almost absent from Technorati searches (the organization my previous boss went to work for fares better)

Cheap Gasoline

It seems like every day on the news they show someone filling up their not-so-fuel-efficient car complaining about how horrible it is that gas prices are so unacceptably high*.

Yet they never show a chart like this which shows the price in Europe is at least double.

Why not put it in perspective?

-- Andy

*Today they actually showed some guy who commutes an hour and a half each way in his car. I bet he wins the good parenting award for that!

Future Post

Mainly a reminder to myself to blog about why Toyota beat out GM in sales.

Hint: It is not because GM goes by the abreviation of their name instead of General Motors.