Ben contemplates fatherhood

commonplace book / /

From Ben Jones’ Benblog, February 2003:

I was also thinking it strange, the idea of being a businessman. How, when I have children, and people ask what their daddy does, they’ll say, “Oh, he’s a businessperson.”

Maybe I’ll wait until I retire for little ones, just so they can say, “Oh, he gardens. And writes. And draws stories for us. And cooks. And sings. And plays harmonica. And makes up songs on the piano. And saves beautiful wood. And makes mommy laugh. And make other strange happy yummy noises when their door is closed. And dances. And paints with paint he grinds himself sometimes. And cooks. And camps. And photographs. And plays sports. And reads. And other stuff. Sometimes, all dressed up. But mostly, he just hangs out with us, doing the stuff we want to do.”

Ben contemplates fatherhood Read More »

Ben Jones sands his floors

commonplace book, on writing / /

From Ben Jones’ Benblog, February 2003:

Prepare. Sand down the roughest parts. Vacuum. Gaze. Gaze again. Sand a level finer, starting to expose more of the grain, slowly in parts, lightly. Stopping frequently, when the machine is strained. Changing the pad. Vacuum. Clean. Assess. Gaze. Gaze again.

This time is the first touch.

There are some rough spots. Some you know you can’t get out. But it’s beautiful still, all the same. More so even, with character I didn’t know was there before.

And then another round. This time is not so rough, not so much dust. On some spots, the sander seems to polish more than cut. Wait for what dust there is to settle again. The pads don’t need to be changed so much now. I know where the sander will catch.

I’ve made some gouges here and there, impatient with rough spots, stains. I’m more careful, more accepting now of the others I find. They will come out with a finer hand, or they will stay, part of the wood’s character, that I’m growing to love even more.

Vacuum. Clean. Assess. Gaze. Gaze again.

This time I stroke, grasping the wood as fully as I can. Knowing the rough spots especially.

And then once again, now the 100 grit. Smooth now, with enough teeth to hold a polishing coat. To last a while. Shining through. With a touch up here and there.

Ben Jones sands his floors Read More »

Ben Jones on primal fears

overheard / /

From Ben Jones’ Benblog:

I wonder if, the same way we possibly have a residual ancestral memory of snakes eating early hominids that makes certain people fearful of snakes, if the inexplicable fear that some of us have for clowns and realistic dolls and marionettes and that horror of horror a realistic looking clown marionette, which provides so much latitude for interpretation, and hence, ubiquitous, unmitigated terror, is a residual future perception, of a world where clown marionettes eat our progeny.

Ben Jones on primal fears Read More »

Great Freudian slip story

commonplace book, overheard / /

From Plastic:

When my son was about 4, I took him to the swimming pool at the local YMCA. In the locker room was a one-legged man getting dressed. He was sitting right next to where my locker was so we had to share the bench.

My son was naturally curious about his missing leg and kept staring at the man. My son’s curiosity made me nervous. The man might not like being scrutinized so closely (though, in hindsight, it was probably no big deal and he might have even enjoyed the wonder in the eyes of a 4-year old).

To distract my son I started chattering away with him as I was dialing the combination to open my lock. The lock was old and cranky and it wouldn’t open on the first try. With absolutely no planning or intention, I blurted out, ‘This lock is on its last leg.’

I could have sank though the floor.

Great Freudian slip story Read More »

Love those pamphlet titles

commonplace book, history / /

From “American Jezebel by Eve LaPlante“, a review of a biography of Anne Hutchinson, in Salon:

If [Anne] Hutchinson had been born a man, some historians argue, she might have found a place in her society as a minister. She might have carved out a life like that of John Cotton, the unorthodox founder of Congregationalism, Hutchinson’s teacher and the man her family had followed to Boston when he was forced to leave England. On the other hand, she might have turned out like the renegade Rev. Roger Williams, another early settler of Rhode Island, who was driven out of Boston for voicing a variety of objectionable views, most notably the belief that the English had no right to claim Indian lands or subject Native Americans to forced conversions. Williams conducted a pamphlet feud with Cotton, set off when he published ‘The Bloody Tenet of Persecution,’ a tract in support of religious freedom. Cotton then put out ‘The Bloody Tenet Washed and Made White in the Blood of the Lamb.’ Williams responded with ‘The Bloody Tenet Made Yet More Bloody by Mr. Cotton’s Endeavor to Wash It White in the Blood of the Lamb.

Love those pamphlet titles Read More »

The social perils of immortality

commonplace book, science, technology / /

From John Shirley:

Immortality? Maybe. There’s one company …: “There’s that UCSF scientist who keeps cropping up with roundworms. Now and then you hear something new about her and her program: Cynthia Kenyon. She’s started a company called Elixir. She’s working on ways to tweak a gene called daf-2 which controls how well cells repair themselves over time. This gene gets shut off somehow–she’s trying to turn it back on, I take it…She did it in roundworms first. Now she’s done it in mice, vastly extending their lifespans. Daf-2 apparently controls a host of proteins and hormones that repair cells, eliminate free radicals, destroy bacteria and so on. All this may be far more complex in humans than in animals though…

If it works, chances are that it’ll be so expensive that it won’t appreciably add to overpopulation. Only a few people will be able to afford it. The rich will become semi-immortal. The poor may be kept in ignorance about how this is done, lest revolution demand everyone gets relative immortality. This partial suppression of the relevant biotech can be justified, perhaps: not only for reasons of space and sufficient resources in an overpopulated Earth, but for reasons of encouraging genetic diversity–mortality is motivation for reproducing. The human race seems to need death…

The social perils of immortality Read More »

DRM ratchets up, but never quite works

business, security, tech in changing society, technology / /

From Edward Felten’s "DRM and the Regulatory Ratchet":

Regular readers know that one of my running themes is the harm caused when policy makers don’t engage with technical realities. One of the most striking examples of this has to do with DRM (or copy-restriction) technologies. Independent technical experts agree almost universally that DRM is utterly unable to prevent the leakage of copyrighted material onto file sharing networks. And yet many policy-makers act as if DRM is the solution to the file-sharing problem.

The result is a kind of regulatory ratchet effect. When DRM seems not to be working, perhaps it can be rescued by imposing a few regulations on technology (think: DMCA). When somehow, despite the new regulations, DRM still isn’t working, perhaps what is needed is a few more regulations to backstop it further (think: broadcast flag). When even these expanded regulations prove insufficient, the answer is yet another layer of regulations (think: consensus watermark). The level of regulation ratchets up higher and higher – but DRM still doesn’t work.

The advocates of regulation argue at each point that just one more level of regulation will solve the problem. In a rational world, the fact that they were wrong last time would be reason to doubt them this time. But if you simply take on faith that DRM can prevent infringement, the failure of each step becomes, perversely, evidence that the next step is needed. And so the ratchet clicks along, restricting technical progress more and more, while copyright infringement goes on unabated.

DRM ratchets up, but never quite works Read More »

Black Friday, now Cyber Monday

business, technology / /

From "Ready, Aim, Shop" in The New York Times:

Though it sounds like slick marketing, Cyber Monday, it turns out, is a legitimate trend. According to Shop.org, a trade group, 77 percent of online retailers reported a substantial sales increase on the Monday after Thanksgiving last year. “Not good for employers,” observed Ed Bussey, senior vice president of marketing at the online lingerie retailer Figleaves.com.

Figleaves.com said sales on Cyber Monday last year were twice those of Black Friday. And that number is likely to jump this year when it offers the online equivalent of a doorbuster – 20 percent off all items.

Black Friday, now Cyber Monday Read More »

Some numbers about General Motors

business / /

From "For a G.M. Family, the American Dream Vanishes" in The New York Times:

G.M.’s problem, at least in terms of its costs, is the enormous price of health care benefits for hundreds of thousands of retirees. G.M. is the largest private provider of health care, covering more than a million Americans. …

G.M. plans to cut its blue-collar work force even further, though, to 86,000 Americans nationwide by the end of 2008, about the same number of people it once employed in Flint alone in the 1970’s. At its peak, G.M. employed more than 600,000 Americans.

“Frankly in our business, the progress in improving productivity has been dramatic,” Mr. Wagoner said. “Over a 10-year period, we have gone from a ballpark of 40-plus hours a vehicle in assembly to 20-plus hours a vehicle.”

Benefits are another matter. G.M. pays about $1,500 per car assembled in the United States for health care, more than it spends on steel.

Some numbers about General Motors Read More »