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Notes/Archives - Slog (a sloppy Blog)

December 2006
OK, the red paper clip was an amazing study in bartering. I have to admit I was skeptical at first; but then I realized it was more about the sociology experiment. It was a really heartwarming story - and the 'author' was very entertaining on the blog all the way through. So his brother and a friend next decided to try to hitchhike to all 50 capitol cities. They made it - and I'm sure had just as much fun. They do a great job of blogging and storing images on flickr for people to browse. Fun. I wish I thought of that during my college years... yeah right. I wasn't that creative. I think there's a book coming out about the paper clip soon...
    Also heard about a good book that I'm going to have to have a look at - "They Call Me Naughty Lola"  It's about 'lonely hearts' ads from the London Review of Books. Sounds entertaining. Meets the non-fiction criterion.
After my last post and recent despair over the decline of society, these creative entries give me hope that we're at least going to be entertained and charmed on our way to damnation.
    Finally - an update from a 3 year old entry. Our new baby girl was named Dana. So now we can study the effect of giving a girl a popular name 'Emma' (#2) vs. a much less popular one 'Dana' (#396). At least we didn't name her Angel - which has been shown to be well correlated with low intelligence. [source Atlantic Monthly and Freakonomics] :) 

November 2006
As a human race we can't continue to 'grow' our population and economies while promoting a wasteful, inefficient, western lifestyle. [We must almost entirely scrap the prevailing model of a competitive, growth economy and adopt materially simple economies that stress cooperation and participatory control. Above all, we must move to a steady-state or zero-growth economy. There is now a global ecovillage movement pioneering the development of new settlements that are required for sustainability. Hopefully, the coming "mother of all oil shocks" finally will get all this on the public agenda.] ..from Ted Trainer, the author of The Conserver Society and Towards a Sustainable Economy.
http://www.dieoff.org/index.htm#consensus

January 2006
Wow, how time flies... and all I can come up with is this lame site:
http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/

You thought snappy/catchy/funny phrases on t-shirts had been DONE; this takes it to a whole new level. You want it on a t-shirt, mug, whatever - they got it.

Also check out Bro Pivin's Band - Dimonet -> Playing a gig near you...

August 2005 - Katrina

I still can't believe the level of destruction and desperation in Louisiana/Mississippi in the wake of Katrina. The NAOA site and 'Google Earth' have been good for a techy to get a survey of the details.
NOAA Katrina (imagery post-Katrina plus all the gory storm details)
Google Earth (type Superdome, New Orleans)

If you ever want to blow your mind and weekend figuring out a movie, see Primer. You can surf the web for everyone's try at an explanation. Good nerd flick. It won the Sundance Film Festival.

August 2004 - "Ode to P-Town" [found on the web - it's perfect]
 

Other Portland essay links:
http://www.mondiale.co.uk/smallbeans/letter.html
http://www.nationalpress.org/usr_doc/Rowe_remarks.pdf
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/special/oregonian/whatwentwrong/part_1.html
    You can also read this here: It's a good overview of why Oregon's politics and budget are in crisis.

OK, so if you're really enterprising, you can check out the details of the budget here:
Oregon Center for Public Policy

Oregon Legislative Revenue Office
Citizens for Oregon's Future

June 2004

The numbers behind the name Emma - from the SSA... Maybe we should have looked into this before we named her...
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Emma was the second most popular name for babies getting Social Security cards in U.S. for 2003 (22532 Emmas)

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Emma's popularity is growing exponentially; whereas Mary's is flat - Madison is one of only a few gaining faster.

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Emma was the most popular name in 23/50 states (plus DC and Puerto Rico); but didn't carry California, New York, Texas, or Florida, so don't think that she had a chance in the Electoral College.

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Emma is the name of Rachel's daughter on 'Friends' - but that had no impact on our decision

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Sorry Emma, guess you're just another face in the crowd!
 
2003 SSN Baby Names
Emily 25494
Emma 22532
Madison 19986
Hannah 17393
Olivia 15982
Abigail 15789
Alexis 14659
Ashley 14402
Elizabeth 13927
Samantha 13733

Popularity of Emma
Year Emma Jane Mary Abigail Joyce
2003 2 432 61 6 643
2002 4 416 52 7 617
2001 13 422 49 8 575
2000 17 437 47 14 565
1999 17 437 45 18 563
1998 21 417 46 19 538
1997 37 397 44 24 607
1996 52 409 43 33 623
1995 67 410 42 38 586
1994 73 372 38 44 581
1993 82 372 39 67 543
1992 103 398 39 84 524
1991 125 371 39 88 520
1990 132 356 37 90 471

May 2004

Nice sermon from pastor Kane at Hillsboro UMC (also linked here)
Edward Tufte's site - some interesting visualization stuff.
Compare this with David Byrne's work... especially EEEI.
If you can't get an MIT degree, you can at least pretend...

January 2004

Been a while since last entry... Some good stuff to record here. After watching a little bit of local cable access, I stumbled across this little gem: Fingerboarding! Astounding. The question is, if your son or daughter got this much into a hobby, would you worry? or would you be proud?

Don Zobel is in South America. He sends updates via e-mail every week or two. Now he's sending pictures. Check it out!  I feel like I'm in the adventure with him whenever I read his mail.

This IS cool music.

...Lifted...
(In one episode of 'Cheers', Cliff is seated at the bar describing the Buffalo Theory to his buddy Norm. I don't think I've ever heard the concept explained any better than this....) "Well you see, Norm, it's like this... A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Now, as we know, excessive intake of alcohol kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. And that, Norm, is why you always feel smarter after a few beers...."

June 2003
Discovered Jurassic 5 music today. Give "Quality Control" and "Snap, Crackle, Pop" a try.

January 2002

  Did Intel blow it? I hope not; but here is an entertaining and ALMOST unbiased look at Pentium 4.

  Do antique glass windows bulge at the bottom because glass flows? Judge for yourself.

  We recently enjoyed a rim-to-rim Grand Canyon backpacking trip -- started at the North Rim and emerged from the South Rim a couple days later. (left)

  We're trying to get a bit more organized about planning mountain bike rides; care to join us?
If so, e-mail me and I'll send you the distribution list for the other riders. You can also go to the UBS page.

  Check out my brother's band Rekmod (he's the drummer). Lock up your daughters and put in your earplugs.