Author Archives: peterbp

About those Teslas…

Surely you have heard about the Tesla company and its cars. Of course. Sleek and streamlined on the exterior, luxurious and highly comfortable on the inside. You’d want one!

Oh, and it’s not gasoline-powered; instead it uses electricity from a large battery pack. It doesn’t contribute to the smog of the cities or the general CO2 emissions. Sweet!

Only, of course it contributes to CO2 emissions and general air pollution when the source of the electrical energy is not renewable or nuclear. However, in a  world where renewables are becoming more and more commonplace, this will be less of a concern.

I have a quibble, however. It is that, while the battery allows pollution-less operation, it is also very heavy: In fact it weighs in at around 1000 kg for the top 85 kWH battery pack. Most smaller cars weigh that, or less than that.

The operating weight of a Tesla S is 2000-2250 kg, while that of, say a FIAT 500 (2007 model) is just about 1000 kg. This 1-tonne battery pack is mass that needs to be towed around – it needs energy to be accelerated and it causes additional rolling resistance. (The  biggest force acting on the car at high speeds is the air resistance, which is mitigated somewhat by the streamlined frame – bu at low speeds this does nothing to help the Tesla, as it is the rolling friction that is the biggest energy leech).

Thus, yes’ it’s a clean and bloody desirable piece of equipment, but for it to be significantly better than any gasoline powered car, energy must become much more plentiful than it is today. (Hint: Nuclear.).

I do look forward to Graphene capacitors/batteries become reality and enter the consumer market, which will eliminate the problem of added weight from energy storage systems.

 

On Revenge, Briefly

Revenge is the inclination you get after having your cheeks bloom with redness and fire, your throat constrict and your hands clench into fists. It is the feeling that resides within after that the abusive tirade toward your person that you’ve received, a response to the beatings you have suffered, to the injustice you have become subject to.

While there is a lot to be said in re. to both injustices and of the justified feeling of revenge, there is brief line for you here:

“The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.“, said Marcus Aurelius.

People feel abused because they have been subjected to abuse. Thus, if you were to abuse others in whichever way, after having yourself been subjected to abuse and belittlement, would make you no better than the asshole that caused pain in you. Not only that, it would create one more viction in a world with too many already. (I could indeed say that such behaviour would perpetuate the cycle of hate and suffering, but that would be a tad too Buddhist of me.).

This in itself will not help overcoming the pain, but it will help seal the door after you once you have healed the wounds that ooze the desire for revenge.

(This does not mean that abuse, assault and destruction should be disregarded, go unpunished and forgotten; of course not. More on that later.)

That celebrated icon of American Investing…

Warren Buffet, philanthropist and purported icon of a more humane capitalism. Celebrated by the right and center as a general example of the payoff of decades of hard work careful investment, and noddingly approved by the center-left for his criticism of cronyism-capitalism and a progressive stance on taxing the rich. (Damn, were they easy to buy off. Pop the bubbly, Bill!)

However, those billions are not that hard to shovel in, when at least some of it is based on the usual old methods of squeezing the hard-off:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-06/warren-buffett-slumlord-%E2%80%93-predatory-loans-kickbacks-preying-poor

Truth or Tact?

A question I was made aware of:

Is it more important to you that you are tactful, or truthful?

This starts out as a soft and gossamer question which transmutes into to something that probes deeper into the human depth.

Initially: My view on this is that if you care about truth, you will realize that at least some degree of tact is necessary to make that truth take hold in the minds of others. You may be an obnoxious loudmouth that doesn’t care about speaking properly to people, at least as a token of good faith, however:

Opinionated, obnoxious or even toxic people are causing much damage with their vitriolic behavior as most people simply do not differentiate between a persons opinions and their behavior towards them. This is – when observed solely from the perspective of propagation of valid knowledge – a sad fact of the human condition, though entirely understandable: We modern apes are emotional beings first, and cognitive high-function beings a far second. Verbal and emotional abuse is damaging not only to the social fabric, as it causes individual distress and as such, loss of useful cognition in a specific field (or worse in the case of HSP’s – Highly Sensitive Persons – where it may sow the seeds of anxiety and depression), it causes loss of the possibility for an idea, or a set of ideas, to propagate through human society and civilization. (I will not go into the consideration whether disgust for abusive persons has roots in evolutionary biology).

If the person is intelligent enough to understand this dynamic AND that they care enough for their cause in the sense of the successful promulgation of it, they will eventually change their behavior to be more accordant with others.

If they are intelligent enough, but do not moderate their behavior due to lack of empathy/empathetic understanding of the other party , then it is because they are sociopaths or suffer from a neurological disorder. Sociopaths are erratically emotional people prone to angry or abusive outbursts or consistent abrasive attacks on opponents. (Sociopathy is covered under the ASPD diagnosis).

Regardless of being intelligent enough though having a mostly normal empathetic sense, if abusive people do not moderate their behavior, they then throw abuse for egotistical reasons, ie. ego-boosting, showing their supposed greater ability than their target off in public, or simplistically gratifying themselves by trouncing their unfortunate victims. This is a trait of both narcissism and psychopathy.

Narcissists (having the condition NPD: Narcissistic Personality Disorder) are people with a pathologically inflated self-image, but shrouded, low self-esteem – they usually behave vainly and with low empathy or recognition of others. If someone pokes unpleasantly close to their core of low self-esteem, they suffer a so-called “narcissistic injury”, which will result in a overblown response (verbally pointed, abrasive or even physically violent) to the words that preceded it.

Psychopaths are people, while usually intelligent, have a severely weakened sense of empathy and regard of the well-being of others;  they will always tend to seek out positions of power and high social standing and are usually good at achieving these; as such, they get to be in positions where they can use this power or influence to not only disregard the well-being of their subordinates (not merely in contexts of the conventional political or business organisations, but in less hierarchical environments such as clubs, communities, forums, physical or on-line) without fear of consequences to themselves, but disregarding their dignity to such degree that they toy with others for their own entertainment (verbal abuse being a form of ‘toying’). (Psychopathy is a subgroup of ASPD).

Lastly, if they consistently trounce others in public or private simply for the fact that the others are “wrong”, it doesn’t matter if they are intelligent, and it doesn’t matter of they are empathetic (though this behavior usually wears off for empathetic individuals and also usually with age), they are fanatics, the kind of person that hold no blows back against a specific (real or imaginary) opponent, where opponents are often dehumanized (as an inhuman, or as sub-human*, is easier to massively smear and once their flock is numerous enough), where abuse against out-group individuals is dismissed at the wave of a hand.

Fanaticism is typically instilled from ideology (political or religious), during the formative years, or during a vulnerable period, of that persons life. While attempts to reason (and as such moderate that persons behavior) with a fanatic will usually bear no fruit of itself, it can have some efficacy if that people has started to see problems in that person’s ideological/religion in-group (this, ironically, usually caused by abusive behavior of those persons themselves).

Nevertheless, the sad fact in the case of online abuse seems to be that the person you are facing** are most likely not giving much of a damn about you (and far less likely to ever apologize), either because they are unable to due to for reasons of a disorder, or because their disorder is that of the meme called “ideology” has taken over (at least temporarily) their brain. While physical venues and online forums can be somewhat safeguarded from these abusive individuals, private conversations and exchanges generally cannot, and you are best off by adjusting your expectations about the sort of behavior you can expect from others – without stooping to their low levels (in which case they have not only caused discomfort for you, but they have won insofar that their abusive behavior has left a long-lasting scar on your person).

 

*) Subhuman doesn’t not nescessarily refer to being considered a different race or ethnicity, but also as  having purported debilities or undesirable traits, these traits including “bad ideas” such as opposing religion, which of course includes opposing political ideology or ideological fragments; certain ideological extremists regularly justify their own abuse directed against the opponents by their opponents holding opinions of “low empathy” or “low solidarity” (though the terms of course mutate from time to time. You will also notice that in terms of political ideology, the justifications of the so-called “left”  and “right” are practically mirror images of each other.

**) Obviously not, as the behavior that some people put on display in public electronic debates, or private internet exchanges, would see them mauled in short order if they were in reach of their victim.

If there is no Peak Oil…

…then why did the whole oil-producing world (sans-USCanada) increase its combined production by a mere 4%, while the oil price steeply increased from 2005 onwards (spiking on a near-150$ in 2008, and then crashing back to the level it arose from, thus making an impressive price record, but a slightly more modest yearly average figure)?

Keeping in mind that modern large-scale enterprises these days are profit-maximizing entities, why would they not ramp up production when a golden opportunity like this presented itself?

s: http://econimica.blogspot.dk/2015/04/why-would-corporations-nations-leave.html

Why not to smoke

I’m going to be obnoxious to some of you here, but bear with me.

You’ve been told plenty of times before why not to smoke. I’ll summarise it briefly:

  1. Its bad for your health. Yellow teeth and fingers are the least of your concerns. Your immune defense will be weakened,  your skin will lose its both ability to keep foreign bodies out, lose its ability to retain moisture, and thus you will look 10 to 20 years older than you are (which is why its mindboggling that young women choose to smoke at all!). The smoke contains a “tar” of noncombustible or combustion remains that will build up in your lungs.  These are themselves poisonous, but what’s worse is that they contain traces of Polonium, a radioactive element, and as such is a major contributor to lung cancer.
  2. It’s bad for your wallet. Not as much in countries that don’t or barely tax tobacco as in in countries that do (Scandinavia and Western Europe in general).
  3. It weakens your physical condition: You’re going to have a hard time on the running track or at your favorite sport.
  4. You lose your sense of smell and a good deal of your sense of taste (much of the sense of taste of say hot food, is in fact a combination of taste AND smell). You’re robbing yourself of the delicious taste experiences of your favorite foods. You won’t be able to smell the spring flowers. Youre quality of life drops.
  5. It’s harmful to those around you. You can choose not to believe it, but but even low amounts of smoke tobacco fumes put others that inhale it at a risk.  Assuming the wind doesn’t carry tobacco smoke away, the rest of uss can clearly smell it from over 20 metres down the street.
  6. Tobacco companies have known that smoking tobacco was carcinogenic for decades, even a decade before the harm of tobacco use came into the public searchlight. Even as it did, they were continually researching how to make tobacco more addictive. A hooked customer is a loyal customer.
  7. Worst of all, in re. #1, the tobacco companies knew this all along. The Polonium originates from apatite rock that is ground down to use as a Phosphorous fertiliser for the tobacco plants. They didn’t care, despite being well aware of both the problem and a method of removing the radioactive substances from the fertiliser.

In summary: It’s bad for you, its costly, it robs you of your life quality, and you are the BITCH of the tobacco companies that are killing you all while they’re draining your money out of your wallet!

To paraphrase Neo,: “How about that I give you the finger, and you give me my money back?“

Now, for something entirely un-worldly

You might have heard of that game called World of Warcraft (henceforth “WoW”), which has been one of the the preferred escape-from-reality venues of the gaming public for a decade. In re. the part of the participants that have for the past 6+ years or so been lamenting “WoW is dying/dead”*…

…subscriber wise – it gave Blizzard (the developers) sweat on their collective brows when it dropped the sub no. from ~12 M til under 7 M – the worst drop ever, thus bringing it back to early BC figures. Yes, WoD (the latest installment in the game) brought it back up to top 10 M as there was 3.3 M subs sold the first 24 hours after WoD launch in November ’14, but this still doesn’t change the fact that the WoW crowd is getting worn out – more than they were in Wrath, Cata or MoP. WoD has content- and polish-wise been very well done, yet still the players crash out all the faster now. The Old Guard, those names you knew back from Vanilla (and from the time where people got pissed off that the Staff of the Twin Worlds trumphed everything they had busted their asses for pre-BC) is largely gone – most re-dicovered life outside of the fantasy land as well as the responsibilities that comes with crossing the boundary of one decennial to another – the remainder is the hard core which will probably stay forever (but who are often so caught up in the game that they just don’t respond to whispers…). Aside from the Vanilla Veterans and the rest of the pre-Wrath Old Guard, the game has increasingly been tuned to appeal to casuals with a gentler learning curve and easier accessibility of both quests and gear (rewards).

This is nice and commendable as it opens up the in-game experience more to people with less time on their hands (and a lower frustration threshold), BUT – on the other hand it also means that now, the game has a much larger contingent of players that have few compulsions not to drop out at a moments notice. Easy come, easy go in this case. So, while the subscriber base got a (deserved) solid boost with the release of WoD, the change in demographics over the years means that it’s likely to eventually crash out relatively rapidly, when the casuals have had their fill, or simply need to attend to the demands of the non-virtual aspect of living.

Speaking of that, we still live in a world where there are mounting problems with unstable and collapsing societal economies, growing worries of security and safety, environmental issues are slowly turning into outright problems, and so on.

The perverse consequence of this is that as the world becomes too ugly to face, and the economy weakens to a point where otherwise-regular social life with going to the movies, clubbing, restaurants, and enjoying the daily large moccachinos and whatnot becomes too expensive, the entertainment-distraction that can be bought with a monthly €14 fee becomes more appealing. Thus, as the world get swamped in problems, these virtual worlds might just prosper.

So don’t call WoW dead just yet.

*) Including yours truly, though I imagine I’ve learnt my lesson.

The Bankers Manifesto of 1892

(Revealed by US Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr. from Minnesota before the US Congress sometime during his term of office between the years of 1907 and 1917 to warn the citizens.)

We (the bankers) must proceed with caution and guard every move made, for the lower order of people are already showing signs of restless commotion [that would be us]. Prudence will therefore show a policy of apparently yielding to the popular will until our plans are so far consummated that we can declare our designs without fear of any organized resistance [that would be SOON]. The Farmers Alliance and Knights of Labor organizations in the United States should be carefully watched by our trusted men, and we must take immediate steps to control these organizations in our interest or disrupt them.

At the coming Omaha Convention to be held July 4th (1892), our men must attend and direct its movement, or else there will be set on foot such antagonism to our designs as may require force to overcome. This at the present time would be premature. We are not yet ready for such a crisis. Capital must protect itself in every possible manner through combination (conspiracy) and legislation.

The courts must be called to our aid, debts must be collected, bonds and mortgages foreclosed as rapidly as possible.

When through the process of the law, the common people have lost their homes, they will be more tractable and easily governed through the influence of the strong arm of the government applied to a central power of imperial wealth under the control of the leading financiers. People without homes will not quarrel with their leaders.

History repeats itself in regular cycles. This truth is well known among our principal men who are engaged in forming an imperialism of the world [that would be SENIOR politicians]. While they are doing this, the people must be kept in a state of political antagonism.

The question of tariff reform must be urged through the organization known as the Democratic Party, and the question of protection with the reciprocity must be forced to view through the Republican Party.

By thus dividing voters, we can get them to expand their energies in fighting over questions of no importance to us, except as teachers to the common herd. Thus, by discrete action, we can secure all that has been so generously planned and successfully accomplished.

—

Damning, but nevertheless it’s a forgery, even though it might as well have been genuine, and it certainly doesn’t seem alien to the financial powers that be to do such things.

 

Some things that are worthless or highly overvalued

Inspired by a recent Quora question, here are some answers others have given and which I will elaborate on, or some things I picked out of my own navel:

>Lawns, clean cars and other hideous wastes of potable water.

Lawns should not be watered – it is healthiest for the lawn to go though the natural cycles of drought, as it also kills off moss and such.

Cars can du fine with being cleaned one a year (after the winter season when i’d useful to get all the road salt washed off of it and the chassis, but apart from that, you only need to keep the windows and windshield clean so you can see where you drive.

It seems to me that dust and dirt on the car actually protects the paintjob from sun and its UV radiation which bleaches the colour!

Yes, potable fresh water is a precious recourse, as the Californians are finding out this year where the entire state is drought-stricken.

>The constant need to be connected 24X7 with people or information media, whether it is through social networking sites, phones, sms or any other media.

You don’t need Facebook or Twitter or other “social media”. Having these social means of interaction is a convenience, but mostly it is a place to hang out because more or less everyone else is there in this day and age. (Think about that whole notion for a while…. because everyone else uses it… for now). Being there once maybe twice a week is sufficient. More than that is a waste of time or outright attention whoring. And yes, there are a LOT of attention whores out there.

>NECKTIES. They are the most worthless human invention. They spread germs and make it easy to kill you via strangulation or syncope. They also make it easy to get you fired since you come to work late. You waste two minutes to choose one from your wardrobe, another two minutes to tie it, and another 5 minutes to redo everything because it does not look perfect. If you are clumsy and spill some coffee on it during breakfast,it will cost you another 5 minutes. And if you have hypertension and cardiac disease and you react violently to the mishap, it can mean the end of you. The risk-to-benefit ratio for me wearing ties is infinite.

True, and made me chuckle. Also consider whether you’d want to work for a boss who insists on you wearing a necktie. (Try showing up for work with a butterfly).

>Clothing from designer labels.

Massively overpriced simply because it is in artificially scarce supply, and because it is given insanely much attention by the aforementioned attention whores, including women and men whose primary mode of judging other humans are by what brands they wear and whether they’re keeping up with the “fashion” (ie. centrally dictated clothing choices).

You can get very good quality plain clothes for a tenthe of the price of “posh” brands. You might even want to try visiting an old-fashioned clothier to have it sown by hand by a tailor – ie. local labor – instead of the posh elite?

>Rat race.
>Reason: Once you’ve realised that there is no end to the rat race, it’ll be too late; you’ll realise you wasted your whole life running about; you didn’t enjoy the only life you have; you didn’t give time to those near and dear to you; you didn’t see the beauty of nature all around; you didn’t give time to discover yourself, and your hobbies.
>You gain nothing and die unhappy.

Very important to consider and accept this.

>Cars as a status symbol.  I drove the same Honda Civic for 11 years until it died.  To me a car is strictly utilitarian, to get from point A to point B.

A good car is useful if youre e.g. a travelling salesman or otherwise spend a lot of time on the road, but…. as a status symbol? Try injecting some meaning into your life instead.

>EVERYONE’S OPINION

Aye… opinions are like arseholes – everyone has one.

…and you really don’t need to inspect every one of them in detail.

That being said, it’s important to being able to listen to others, but other than that, people should also get used to that they have to qualify their opinions with FACT and RATIONAL METHODOLOGY, isntead of just bitch and whine about X or Y.

>Birthdays are overrated.

Yeah… just say happy birthday, but the stuff with presents and more physical stuff to deal with? Get over it. It spoils you and burdens you and those around you.

>“Winning”.
>A lot of people seem fixated on beating other people. I find it very tiresome.
>I’d rather be interested and fulfilled by what I do than spend my time obsessing whether I did more of it or did it harder / better / faster / stronger than someone else.

Getting to the bottom of life’s purpose here, aren’t we?

>He Who Dies With The Most Toys Wins

Consider this.

…where do you get to collect your prize for winning life?