Kilowatt/hour currency

Dear Mike,

I appreciated your enthusiasm for the idea of a currency based on the kilowatt/hour standard. Nor was I surprised by your concern that the currency's "value" would be reduced if the underlying commodity, here electricity, became more abundant.

Snarky reply: The US Dollar is currently backed by the full faith and trust of the US Government. That commodity seems to be decreasing. Does this mean that the dollar is worth more now than it was in 1971?

Wonky reply: are you looking to create a "store of value" or a "medium of exchange"? Which monetary function to optimize?

+glenn

"Capital is not a free gift of God or of nature. It is the outcome of a provident restriction of consumption on the part of man. It is created and increased by saving and maintained by the abstention from dissaving."
-Ludwig Von Mises

Owning shares is a crime

A guest post from Michael Lawyer:

A corporation is legally owned by its shareholders, who may at the exercise of their will do anything with it up to an including killing it. Furthermore they are entitled to all profits of the corporations labor.

Corporations under current jurisprudence are people.

You own the labor of and determine the fate - up to death - of people. That is slavery.

To be a shareholder is to be a slaveholder.

Slavery is unconstitutional. Therefore, as long as corporations have the rights of people, to be a shareholder is unconstitutional.

haboob

haboob is an arabic word for an intense dust storm. They can be created by the collapse of a thunderstorm, a 100 kilometer long wall of sand reaching several kilometers into the sky, and can leave up to a foot of sand on everything in their path.

This one hit Phoenix on Tuesday, 6 July 2011. Mike Olbinski made a great video of it.

The Phoenix Haboob of July 6th, 2011 from Mike Olbinski on Vimeo.

Globalization, land use, and the invasion of the West Nile Virus (Kilpatrick, 2011)

Review article in Science, 21 October

WNV endemic in Africa, childhood disease (>80% of people over 15 having antibodies), considered nearly asymptotic & once even studied as an anti-cancer therapy.

WNV was first observed in the Americas in 1999, in New York City. In four years it was on the west coast, and after 10 years it had reached deep into South America. It had also (by 2002) changed 3 nucleotides/1 amino acid to increase transmission efficiency in C. pipiens and C. tarsalis mosquitos. In the US, 1.8 million people have been infected, 360,000 illnesses (20%), 12852 encephalitis (0.7%), and 1308 deaths (0.0007%). Big cost in blood donor screening. Given a US population of 250 million, these numbers do not seem alarming.

The disease is much worse in birds. Regional-scale population declines >50% have been reported in corvids, chickadees, titmice, wrens, and thrushes.

Robins (the bird, a species of thrush) are a preferred food source for mosquitos. The dominant WNV vectors are the mosquito species C. pipiens, C. restuans, and C. tarsalis. Some 30-80% of their feedings are on robins, though robins make up only 1-20% of the studied avian communities.

Robins do exceptionally well in human altered landscapes. Populations have doubled over the last 25 years (or is this because we stopped using DDT?? What were robin populations 100 years ago?)

WNV has chosen the "kill them fast" reproductive strategy. Sick animals are more vulnerable to mosquito bites, and increased virema increases the odds that a bite will infect the mosquito. In the (non-anthropod) host, death does not reduce transmission probabilities, as time to recovery and time to death are both 4-6 days.

Mosquitos hitchike on airplanes.

WNV- flavirivus

Green Bay Packers

I am now the proud owner of a NFL football team. Which just happens to be 12-0 for the season!!

Go Packers!

Previous stock sales took place in 1923, ’35, ’50 and ’97. Prior to Tuesday morning, the organization had approximately 112,000 shareholders holding around 4,750,000 shares of stock.

ecdysiast

New word.

A strip-tease dancer
Also ecdysiastic

mobile computing/status symbols

I've had my Galaxy for many months now, and I still don't quite get all the hype. Yes, it grants some convenience, but the interface is so awkward compared to a desktop computer. It takes "computer frustration" to an all new deeper level.

Is it only me who sees "smartphones" as a mark of poverty, not wealth? When a smartphone becomes the common idea of what a computer is, huh.

My brother Mike and I were talking about comptures and children, his being under 5. The touch-screen is what lets them use the device. So what is this, you want a computer interface designed to operate at the level of a preschooler? WTF?