The rare Seattle Snowplow was sighted today on 3rd Avenue, between Wall and Vine, by a few sharp-eyed and very surprised Seattlites.
"We all thought they were extinct," said David Swinson Maynard, "Certainly there has been little evidence of their existence this winter. So to see one, bold as brass, actually plowing snow was, well, it was like the old days again."
Newcomers to the Seattle area may not realize that snow comes so rarely to Seattle that it is treated like an endangered species. "Snow's natural enemies," explained Seattle mayor Nickles, "such as salt and snowplows, can drive it from its natural habitat in our streets. This can have serious consequences, such as a reduction in minor accidents and the reduced burning of gasoline as vehicle take efficient routes to their destinations. Our streets serve four-wheel-drive vehicles and front-wheel drive vehicles with chains; everyone else can just stay home."
Compounding the problem is the fact that runoff from Seattle goes into Puget Sound, which the city considers a fresh-water arm of the Pacific Ocean. "If salt from Seattle goes into Puget Sound, it may change from fresh to salt water," explained Nickles. "We prefer to use sand, because it is not only protective of the snow, but also clogs sewers and damages wildlife."
As a consequence, snowplows and salt are used rarely in Seattle. The sighting of a snowplow on a downtown street in Seattle was therefore a cause for celebration.
"Seattle's police and emergency vehicles are all rear-wheel drive," explained one EMT. It was pretty tough responding to emergencies by taking public transit."
But some have doubts even now. "Many streets are closed due to snow, and you say there's a snowplow out there?" scoffed an onlooker. "Yeah, sure ... and it's driven by a Sasquatch, right?"
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Monday, December 22, 2008
The Top 7 Fictional Video Game Holidays
My favorite fictional holiday is "We Love The King Day" from the original version of Sid Meiers' great Civilization game. It turns out there are lots of fictional holidays in video games, from Star Festival to Life Day!
Any Excuse For A Party Is A Good Excuse! and here's seven more excuses! | digg storySunday, December 21, 2008
Top 3 Change Sites!
Match them up, boys and girls:
A. Change Dot Com?
B. Change Dot Gov?
C. Change Dot Org?
1. An official website for communicating to the incoming Obama Administration your ideas on how our government and nation could change?
2. A social network site for developing, discussing and promoting ideas on how our nation should change?
3. A site promoting underwear, which can be a useful thing to change?
Voting alone is not enough; participation in elections is only a start. The actual act of governance is key, but it's hard to participate. Letters, phonecalls and emails can get lost in the flood of millions of one-way messages, from us to the political leaders we hire on our behalf. Few of us can afford the time away from work and/or family to knock on the White House door.
The web can change that process by radically dropping the transaction cost of citizen involvement in government decisionmaking. How this works in practice remains to be seen, but it costs very little to try to influence our government on important issues. It is to the credit of the Obama Administration that it is trying to increase citizen involvement, and it is not surprising that a private effort is being a bit more nimble in actually getting discussion going.
Go to http://www.change.gov; within that site are various topics. You can click around to the ones that interest you, use the search feature, or go directly to a few that I've listed below.
Then ... and this is the IMPORTANT part ... click on the "Submit Your Ideas" box to share your ideas. And get your friends & family to do the same.
Don't be shy. Working with our fellow citizens to tell our government what to do is what our nation's Founders envisioned!
Another approach is the privately-developed http://www.change.org. This is FAR more interactive, in that it lets you suggest issues and then promote them with other people anywhere in America.
For instance, check out the Issues Page. You can suggest a cause, but more likely, any cause you're interested in is already listed by some like-minded person who just got here first. You can join the cause, use a variety of facilities to discuss a cause, share information with a variety of tools, organize activities in support of (or in opposition to) the cause, and so forth. No doubt one of the activities might be to petition the incoming Obama Administration on your cause ... making change.gov's functionality a subset of that of change.org!
Underwear! On models!
What's not to like?
I applaud the site owner's cleverness in jumping on the "Change" bandwagon, using scantily clad supermodels; as the Romans never said: "Semper ubi sub ubi!"
Let me close this discussion of the top 3 change sites with my favorite videos on change:
spread the news at digg.com
A. Change Dot Com?
B. Change Dot Gov?
C. Change Dot Org?
1. An official website for communicating to the incoming Obama Administration your ideas on how our government and nation could change?
2. A social network site for developing, discussing and promoting ideas on how our nation should change?
3. A site promoting underwear, which can be a useful thing to change?
Non-Indentical Twins: Change Dot Gov & Change Dot Com
Dot Gov and Dot Org address a common problem: how can citizens make our government work?Voting alone is not enough; participation in elections is only a start. The actual act of governance is key, but it's hard to participate. Letters, phonecalls and emails can get lost in the flood of millions of one-way messages, from us to the political leaders we hire on our behalf. Few of us can afford the time away from work and/or family to knock on the White House door.
The web can change that process by radically dropping the transaction cost of citizen involvement in government decisionmaking. How this works in practice remains to be seen, but it costs very little to try to influence our government on important issues. It is to the credit of the Obama Administration that it is trying to increase citizen involvement, and it is not surprising that a private effort is being a bit more nimble in actually getting discussion going.
Change Dot Gov
The incoming Obama Administration has an innovative website which (in theory) makes it easier for individuals and small groups. How this works in practice remains to be seen but it costs nothing to try to influence our government on important issues.Go to http://www.change.gov; within that site are various topics. You can click around to the ones that interest you, use the search feature, or go directly to a few that I've listed below.
Then ... and this is the IMPORTANT part ... click on the "Submit Your Ideas" box to share your ideas. And get your friends & family to do the same.
Don't be shy. Working with our fellow citizens to tell our government what to do is what our nation's Founders envisioned!
Topics I suggest you try
Please note I am NOT telling you HOW you should think on these issues; it's just my opinion that you SHOULD think on them.- Iraq
What the heck are we DOING there? How can we get our troops outta there? What our obligations to the people whose country that is?: http://change.gov/agenda/iraq_agenda/ - Veterans
Access to prompt and high-quality healthcare; the claims backlog; post traumatic stress disorder, etc.: http://change.gov/agenda/veterans_agenda/ - Civil Liberties
domestic surveillance, torture, Habeas Corpus: http://change.gov/agenda/homeland_security_agenda/
Change Dot Org
Change.gov has some great features, but it's not as terribly interactive. It's like a very efficient email system, that let's you read the Obama team's position on various issues and submit your commits & ideas.Another approach is the privately-developed http://www.change.org. This is FAR more interactive, in that it lets you suggest issues and then promote them with other people anywhere in America.
For instance, check out the Issues Page. You can suggest a cause, but more likely, any cause you're interested in is already listed by some like-minded person who just got here first. You can join the cause, use a variety of facilities to discuss a cause, share information with a variety of tools, organize activities in support of (or in opposition to) the cause, and so forth. No doubt one of the activities might be to petition the incoming Obama Administration on your cause ... making change.gov's functionality a subset of that of change.org!
Change Dot Com
Underwear! On models!
What's not to like?
I applaud the site owner's cleverness in jumping on the "Change" bandwagon, using scantily clad supermodels; as the Romans never said: "Semper ubi sub ubi!"
Let me close this discussion of the top 3 change sites with my favorite videos on change:
spread the news at digg.com
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Snowlots in Seattle
Yes, we're getting pounded. But it's not so bad, if you don't have to drive anywhere:
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
American Veterans and Servicemembers Survival Guide: free!
The American Veterans and Servicemembers Survival Guide is a web-based book, available free for download at VeteransForAmerica.org.
This book will help you survive in the world of the veteran. This world, like the world at large, is not a fair world; you have to know what you’re doing...
read more
digg story
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Cap and Dividend: a market-based solution to CO2
Cap and Dividend is a simple, market-based way to reduce CO2 emissions without reducing household incomes. It caps fossil fuel supplies, makes polluters pay, and returns the revenue to everyone equally, thus offsetting the cost to consumers.
Think about it as an expansion of the Alaskan system, in which the state government gives about $2000 a year to each citizen from the carbon energy industry. Under Cap & Dividend, carbon licenses would be auctioned to carbon users at whatever price the market sets; the profits would be distributed to all citizens (...as in Alaska...) to offset energy price increases.
read more | digg story
Think about it as an expansion of the Alaskan system, in which the state government gives about $2000 a year to each citizen from the carbon energy industry. Under Cap & Dividend, carbon licenses would be auctioned to carbon users at whatever price the market sets; the profits would be distributed to all citizens (...as in Alaska...) to offset energy price increases.
read more | digg story
Monday, December 15, 2008
Donate Your Shoes in the President's Name....
...in memory of President George W Bush's most memorable moment
... I offer a COMPLETELY UNRELATED charity ... seriously, this looks like a good charity and it doesn't have to cost you much to help out. In fact, it gives you something to do with shoes that just didn't fit right ... better than chucking them out! From http://www.soles4souls.org
" Soles4Souls has a simple mission: To impact as many lives as possible with the gift of shoes.More info: http://www.soles4souls.orgSoles4Souls facilitates the donations of shoes, which are used to aid the hurting worldwide. Shoe companies, retailers, and individuals can donate footwear (both new and used). Soles4Souls is a 501(c)(3) recognized by the IRS, and donating parties are eligible for tax advantages.
The idea behind gifts of shoes is nothing new to the Soles4Souls team, as they coordinated relief efforts for the Asian Tsunami and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, netting over 1 Million pairs donated for these disasters. The team originally operated as www.katrinashoes.org with several churches partnering in the collection and distribution of footwear. We need the 'gently worn' shoes taking up space in your closet. It is estimated that Americans have 1.5 billion pairs of unworn shoes lying in their closets. We can use each and every one of these pairs to make a tangible difference in someone's life.
Round up shoes from your closets, bind each pair together with rubber bands and drop them at one of our participating locations or send them to one of our warehouse facilities. We will sort the shoes and categorize them based on gender, size, and type. Then when one of our relief partners expresses a need for the shoes, we will be able to fill that 'order' with your footwear!"
Friday, December 12, 2008
Pension Math for the Compleat Idiot
Let's say you have an outstanding pension obligation to your former, retired workers, of $100 million/year, incurred over the past 50 years. This is a debt, just like any other debt, and must be paid.
You have 50,000 currently employed averaging workers about 2000 hrs/year for a total of 10 million worker hours/year.
$100 million/ 10 million hours = $10/hour.
Now let's say you cut your workforce in half.
You have 25,000 currently employed averaging workers about 2000 hrs/year for a total of 10 million worker hours/year.
$100 million/ 5 million hours = $20/hour.
Now let's say you cut your workforce in half again.
You have 12,500 currently employed averaging workers about 2000 hrs/year for a total of 2.5 million worker hours/year.
$100 million/ 2.5 million hours = $40/hour.
See how it works?
The workers aren't getting any more money. You're just paying off a debt you already incurred, and putting the blame on fewer workers.
You have 50,000 currently employed averaging workers about 2000 hrs/year for a total of 10 million worker hours/year.
$100 million/ 10 million hours = $10/hour.
Now let's say you cut your workforce in half.
You have 25,000 currently employed averaging workers about 2000 hrs/year for a total of 10 million worker hours/year.
$100 million/ 5 million hours = $20/hour.
Now let's say you cut your workforce in half again.
You have 12,500 currently employed averaging workers about 2000 hrs/year for a total of 2.5 million worker hours/year.
$100 million/ 2.5 million hours = $40/hour.
See how it works?
The workers aren't getting any more money. You're just paying off a debt you already incurred, and putting the blame on fewer workers.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
An IKEA Moment
My mom needed her bedframe replaced and, being in her late 70s, needed help from her kids shopping and installing it. I'd really have preferred to Buy American, but there was really only one choice: IKEA.
Our family'd shopped around bargain furniture stores and hadn't found anything in our price range that was acceptable. It seems to me that the basic problem is that most stores pre-assemble their furniture, so the cost is very high and the selection limited. IKEA leaves final assembly to you so their warehouse & shipping costs are low. I don't mind saving a couple hundred dollars by doing the assembly myself; it's basically like working a puzzle only with a very clear cheat sheet, so another way of putting it is that I'm being paid to have fun. Why some domestic manufacturer doesn't copy this strategy, I don't know.
The other thing about IKEA is that they treat customer right when something goes wrong. Stuff happens. As I get older, I notice I make a lot more silly little mistakes. I don't know whether I'm just getting careless or, with the wisdom of age, am recognizing my errors more easily (rather than blaming them on ruthless fact or evil or callous opponents.) Perhaps, like an old cellphone, my mental speed-dial list is full so I don't hold on to new numbers. Anyway, I find it helpful to associate with entities that are fault-tolerant.
First, mom and I and my lovely wife Kris took a day trip to IKEA. Yes, it was the dread Shopping Trip, but a guy has to sacrifice once in a while.
After a leisurely survey of the available bedframes, mom picked out one that was comfortingly solid. We got the warehouse picklist, found the right stockkeeping location, and carefully loaded the 3 boxes onto our cart: headboard (queen size, correct color), footboard (correct color), side rails (correct color). It was on sale, and the savings paid for delivery
(the headboard was way too big for our Saturn SL1; it's a great car but no moving van). All was cool; we had a nice lunch in IKEA's delightfully idiosyncratic cafe (lindenberry soda is actually quite tasty!) and it was a very pleasant day trip.
Thursday I drove up to mom's to assemble the bed. I'd allowed plenty of time since mom's apartment is, appropriately, rather compact and has a lot of stuff in it. After the first hour of chatting and re-arranging stuff to make room for assembly and so forth, mom mentioned it was time for her Tai Chi class
and would I like to try it? At first, I thought "I'm in a hurry!" but then I realized, "What for?". This was a chance to try something new and see what mom enjoyed about it. I did aikido for over a decade and now was trying yoga and pilates, so why not Tai Chi.
Did I mention this is a seated Tai Chi class? Most of the people at mom's home are a bit frail but there were nearly a dozen participants giving the moves a try. You'd recognize a lot of the moves either from your own martial arts practice or from the movies: "Tracing the Rainbow", "Golden Rooster Stands On One Leg", "Stroke the Wild Horse's Mane", and so on ... suitably modified for the individual's capability. It was really a nice workout and kinda inspiring!
Back to work. The directions were very clear, in IKEA's famous cartoon format (no words, just drawings) but unfortunately the VERY FIRST IMAGE indicated that this assembly was a two-person job. Oops! Luckily, my brother Dave had left some 2x4s at mom's place; I don't know why they were there, but they made very useful props. It REALLY is a two-person job joining the side rails to the head- and foot-board simultaneously but the 2x4s did their best. After an hour of jiggery, I almost had the thing put together.
"It's dinnertime, will you join us?" asked mom, and again I thought "No, I'm in a hurry" but again, "Why not?", so I put down the tools. The custom at mom's place is to eat in tables of four, with the same group of people (hopefully friends) eating together for years. Mom's table had a new addition last year, a 105-year-old lady named Geneva. This evening, the other two were out so it was just mom, Geneva and I. It was obvious from the start they were good friends; both had grown up on farms in the midwest (mom in the Canadian midwest) and took life pretty easy. We took our time over dinner telling stories.
Eventually it was time to finish the bedmaking job. I slide the boxspring onto the pedestal and: DISASTER! It was 3 inches too long!
I was completely stumped. The frame was a queen, the boxspring was a queen: are there different queen sizes? ?Had mom gotten an offbrand box spring or did IKEA use some strange Eurometric queen size?
I experimented with propping up the mattresses etc with the 2x4a. Alas, although they tried, it was beyond their capability to violate the basic laws of physics. We ended up with a mostly-stable assembly that was about a foot higher than the bed mom was used to; mom gamely insisted she could use it just fine and even struggled up to get on it. It took only about five minutes and she had to rest afterwards; clearly this wasn't going to work.
She noted that the IKEA comic directions included a drawing of a guy calling their help line. It was hard, but I finally admitted that was the only thing to do; unfortunately they comic didn't include a phone number. Fortunately my gPhone swiftly located customer service for the Renton IKEA. Unfortunately, the nice lady on the phone was as stumped as I was; how could a queen box spring not fit a queen frame? We puzzled over it for a while; the only thing she could think of was that maybe I'd been given a "single-double" by mistake but we agreed that didn't make sense.
Of course, no-one had given me the siderails for a single-double. I'd grabbed them by mistake on my own! Once I checked the packing box and noted the size discrepancy, I felt a huge sense of relief to discover it was just a screw-up, which we could now solve.
Mom was perfectly happy to sleep in her recliner just this one time. (In my bachelor days, I'd slept in a recliner many times and actually it's very comfortable.) The next days I drove back to mom's disassembled the bed, and took the rails back to IKEA. After work, Kris joined me going up to mom's and we put it all together pretty quickly. It really does work better to have a couple on the bed!
There was only one real hitch. There are some metal rails that attach to the solid wooden siderails with about 10 screws a side (Kris & made screwing jokes the whole time - Sotte voce so mom didn't hear - there are limits of course!) plus 4 diagonal metal braces. Once everything was together, we had an extra set of metal rails and struts. Of course! these should have gone back to IKEA when I made the swap!
The next day (Saturday) Kris went shopping & decorating with her mom; I was to join them that evening for her mother's birthday (my mom sent along a musical tree-and-snowglobe tschotcke that was kind of fun). On the way, I stopped at IKEA to drop off the extra metal parts.
Customer Service was, as usual, efficient but they seemed both surprised and happy to get the extra parts back; without any prompting, they gave me a coupon for an entree' and a coffee at the IKEA cafeteria. This really was not necessary, but I never turn down free coffee. I can't believe they were overwhelmingly happy to get the metal parts back, since the bother of restocking and all might seriously cut into the value of the returned item, but what the heck.
The point of all this: it was really extra nice customer service and prompted me to write down my experience. Also: don't be that guy!
Thanks IKEA. We'll be back - although hopefully not soon. There's only so much shopping a man can take!
Our family'd shopped around bargain furniture stores and hadn't found anything in our price range that was acceptable. It seems to me that the basic problem is that most stores pre-assemble their furniture, so the cost is very high and the selection limited. IKEA leaves final assembly to you so their warehouse & shipping costs are low. I don't mind saving a couple hundred dollars by doing the assembly myself; it's basically like working a puzzle only with a very clear cheat sheet, so another way of putting it is that I'm being paid to have fun. Why some domestic manufacturer doesn't copy this strategy, I don't know.
The other thing about IKEA is that they treat customer right when something goes wrong. Stuff happens. As I get older, I notice I make a lot more silly little mistakes. I don't know whether I'm just getting careless or, with the wisdom of age, am recognizing my errors more easily (rather than blaming them on ruthless fact or evil or callous opponents.) Perhaps, like an old cellphone, my mental speed-dial list is full so I don't hold on to new numbers. Anyway, I find it helpful to associate with entities that are fault-tolerant.
First, mom and I and my lovely wife Kris took a day trip to IKEA. Yes, it was the dread Shopping Trip, but a guy has to sacrifice once in a while.
After a leisurely survey of the available bedframes, mom picked out one that was comfortingly solid. We got the warehouse picklist, found the right stockkeeping location, and carefully loaded the 3 boxes onto our cart: headboard (queen size, correct color), footboard (correct color), side rails (correct color). It was on sale, and the savings paid for delivery
(the headboard was way too big for our Saturn SL1; it's a great car but no moving van). All was cool; we had a nice lunch in IKEA's delightfully idiosyncratic cafe (lindenberry soda is actually quite tasty!) and it was a very pleasant day trip.Thursday I drove up to mom's to assemble the bed. I'd allowed plenty of time since mom's apartment is, appropriately, rather compact and has a lot of stuff in it. After the first hour of chatting and re-arranging stuff to make room for assembly and so forth, mom mentioned it was time for her Tai Chi class
and would I like to try it? At first, I thought "I'm in a hurry!" but then I realized, "What for?". This was a chance to try something new and see what mom enjoyed about it. I did aikido for over a decade and now was trying yoga and pilates, so why not Tai Chi.
Did I mention this is a seated Tai Chi class? Most of the people at mom's home are a bit frail but there were nearly a dozen participants giving the moves a try. You'd recognize a lot of the moves either from your own martial arts practice or from the movies: "Tracing the Rainbow", "Golden Rooster Stands On One Leg", "Stroke the Wild Horse's Mane", and so on ... suitably modified for the individual's capability. It was really a nice workout and kinda inspiring!
Back to work. The directions were very clear, in IKEA's famous cartoon format (no words, just drawings) but unfortunately the VERY FIRST IMAGE indicated that this assembly was a two-person job. Oops! Luckily, my brother Dave had left some 2x4s at mom's place; I don't know why they were there, but they made very useful props. It REALLY is a two-person job joining the side rails to the head- and foot-board simultaneously but the 2x4s did their best. After an hour of jiggery, I almost had the thing put together.
"It's dinnertime, will you join us?" asked mom, and again I thought "No, I'm in a hurry" but again, "Why not?", so I put down the tools. The custom at mom's place is to eat in tables of four, with the same group of people (hopefully friends) eating together for years. Mom's table had a new addition last year, a 105-year-old lady named Geneva. This evening, the other two were out so it was just mom, Geneva and I. It was obvious from the start they were good friends; both had grown up on farms in the midwest (mom in the Canadian midwest) and took life pretty easy. We took our time over dinner telling stories.
Eventually it was time to finish the bedmaking job. I slide the boxspring onto the pedestal and: DISASTER! It was 3 inches too long!
I was completely stumped. The frame was a queen, the boxspring was a queen: are there different queen sizes? ?Had mom gotten an offbrand box spring or did IKEA use some strange Eurometric queen size?
I experimented with propping up the mattresses etc with the 2x4a. Alas, although they tried, it was beyond their capability to violate the basic laws of physics. We ended up with a mostly-stable assembly that was about a foot higher than the bed mom was used to; mom gamely insisted she could use it just fine and even struggled up to get on it. It took only about five minutes and she had to rest afterwards; clearly this wasn't going to work.
She noted that the IKEA comic directions included a drawing of a guy calling their help line. It was hard, but I finally admitted that was the only thing to do; unfortunately they comic didn't include a phone number. Fortunately my gPhone swiftly located customer service for the Renton IKEA. Unfortunately, the nice lady on the phone was as stumped as I was; how could a queen box spring not fit a queen frame? We puzzled over it for a while; the only thing she could think of was that maybe I'd been given a "single-double" by mistake but we agreed that didn't make sense.
Of course, no-one had given me the siderails for a single-double. I'd grabbed them by mistake on my own! Once I checked the packing box and noted the size discrepancy, I felt a huge sense of relief to discover it was just a screw-up, which we could now solve.
Mom was perfectly happy to sleep in her recliner just this one time. (In my bachelor days, I'd slept in a recliner many times and actually it's very comfortable.) The next days I drove back to mom's disassembled the bed, and took the rails back to IKEA. After work, Kris joined me going up to mom's and we put it all together pretty quickly. It really does work better to have a couple on the bed!
There was only one real hitch. There are some metal rails that attach to the solid wooden siderails with about 10 screws a side (Kris & made screwing jokes the whole time - Sotte voce so mom didn't hear - there are limits of course!) plus 4 diagonal metal braces. Once everything was together, we had an extra set of metal rails and struts. Of course! these should have gone back to IKEA when I made the swap!
The next day (Saturday) Kris went shopping & decorating with her mom; I was to join them that evening for her mother's birthday (my mom sent along a musical tree-and-snowglobe tschotcke that was kind of fun). On the way, I stopped at IKEA to drop off the extra metal parts.
Customer Service was, as usual, efficient but they seemed both surprised and happy to get the extra parts back; without any prompting, they gave me a coupon for an entree' and a coffee at the IKEA cafeteria. This really was not necessary, but I never turn down free coffee. I can't believe they were overwhelmingly happy to get the metal parts back, since the bother of restocking and all might seriously cut into the value of the returned item, but what the heck.
The point of all this: it was really extra nice customer service and prompted me to write down my experience. Also: don't be that guy!
Thanks IKEA. We'll be back - although hopefully not soon. There's only so much shopping a man can take!
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