Recently checked out a couple of "social-networking" toys, namely Orkut and Yahoo! 360. I can't really see the point of keeping a "public" blog on either of them, because only members of those two communities can see it. And Orkut seems to be very heavily weighted towards dating. Especially if you want to date Brazilians. On the other hand, Linked-In seems to be having a surge lately. I had a couple of former colleagues reconnect through Linked-In, and a bunch of my current coworkers suddenly seem to be getting networked that way. Downside there is that functionally illiterate recruiters keep contacting me.

And so my association with the Berkeley Psychic Institute is coming to a complete end. As with many spiritual organizations, the principles are great, but sometimes the execution leaves something to be desired. Three and a half years ago (is it that long, now?), when I decided to take a break from teaching, the new director of that institute gave me the energetic equivalent of "and don't let the door hit your ass on the way out". I've been an inactive member since then, and now, although I paid for last year and this year at the end of last year, they're telling me I'm coming up short. Nice principles, but twenty years of classes and teaching spirituality doesn't seem to guarantee competence in worldly endeavors, like book-keeping. It's not like I've been performing any marriages or done any spiritual counseling in the last three years, so if they want to make it difficult for me to keep my associate, so be it, I'm moving on.

How depressing. I have to come up with a development plan at work. I am actually perfectly happy going on the same way I have been for the last five years, just with more money. I pretty much do what I perceive needs to be done. And I get my satisfaction out of that.
I don't have some other job I would like to do. I am not interested in being a position of power and influence. Just let me keep having fun doing what I am doing.

Bottled water evil? The author of this opinion piece claimed most people couldn't taste the difference between tap water and bottled water. Well, perhaps London, NYC, and San Francisco have tasty water supplies. And, to be honest, until moving to the San Francisco Bay area, I thought buying bottled water was silly, tap water was fine. Until I tasted the nasty stuff that comes out of the taps in some bay area water districts. The last straw was a particular cup of tea made with the tap water in Livermore. I nearly spewed, it was so bad.

I have been filtering the water at home ever since. About 8 cents a gallon for water that I can palate. I don't disagree with that writer's opinion about the wastefulness of bottled water, but perhaps he might want to go on a water tasting tour, what is true in London is not true in Livermore.

The Dog Poop Girl
Short version--her dog shat on the train, she wouldn't pick it up, someone posted her picture on the net.

There were a lot of comments on Schneier's site worried about public humiliation, and cultural norms. What came to mind is that what someone does, the degree to which they practice what they think is "proper" behavior, in many cases depends on who is looking. I think that there is a certain amount of intrinsic morality that a person has, and a certain amount of their behavioral standards are simply an effort to avoid disapproval. I would suppose, like everything else, the line between the two make a bell curve when you look at large populations.

One of the biggest impacts of the shift of populations to cities is the increase in anonymity. What does it matter if those people sitting across from me see me drop my candy wrapper on the floor of the bus. I'll never see them again, anyway. At first, there is a little fear. But then, as no one we know sees us do the little things we were ashamed of before, we lose our shame after a while.

And we come to a world where I can't just let my daughters go out and play with the neighborhood kids, because there are people who have lost their shame about abusing children.

Perhaps the internet and camera-phones can start to restore community standards.

Value and trust in relationships.

I recently had a conversation about someone's issues with his coworkers. The core issue was trust. Didn't seem anybody trusted him.

That caused me to want to pop out of my long hiatus from philosophizing. :)

I've operated off a principle of value in voluntary relationships, over the last few years. In a relationship, you give something to the other person, they give you something back. What you give and what you get can be anything tangible or intangible you can imagine. And, just like any commercial transaction, what you get is worth more to you than what you give, or you wouldn't give it, would you? Would you?

That's it in a nutshell. To go further would sound like a relationship counseling session. Of course, to leave it at that introduces filthy commerce into what should be pure. Pure of what, though. Does feeling better about yourself, does feeling loved, does feeling powerful, does feeling appreciated have value? Depending on the person, yes! Just satisfying one of your instincts is plenty of value. And if you want to build a strong relationship with someone, you have to take the time to find out what they really value.

So, back to my coworker. I've found myself asking on numerous occasions what value I get from him. He buys me lunch once in a while, and we talk about our kids sometimes. That's kind of nice, but it doesn't make me willing to take a bullet for him.

So, we haven't got much basis for a relationship. There is very little trade there. How about the trust? How could I recommend to him that he earn the trust of his coworkers? I saw a very cool blog a few days back, talking about the concept of a marker--in gambling parlance, a promise to pay. (If anybody can point me to the appropriate attribution, I would appreciate it.) Has he promised us anything beyond what is required from his job, and delivered on it. Before I can trust you where I have to do something, you have to show you can be trusted when I am just watching. Make a commitment, and demonstrably keep it. If you do it when it costs you something personally, that makes you that much more trustworthy.

So, how does this coworker earn my trust? He has to make commitments beyond what is required of him by his position, and they have to be commitments that he can be seen to be living up to.

And lest I forget, that commitment, of course, has to be to something that I consider of value. In other words, the commitments he makes have to reflect personal values and principles at least somewhat aligned with mine, or at least the ones I would like to have.

That's about all I have to say on it for now. That clarifies things for me a bit.

How sad. Just saw the video segment that Jeff Jarvis was in. If not for having listened for a few minutes to Randi Rhodes on Air America, I would have taken it as an isolated incident. The heirs of Rush Limbaugh are everywhere, and liberals now figure prominently in their ranks. "How can you possibly compare these people to Rush Limbaugh?" you ask? There doesn't appear to be any reasoned discourse. Just vicious appeals to negative emotions. The lowest common denominator.

I can remember when I made a radical change in my perspective after hearing a good friend quoting Rush Limbaugh. My mom would listen to the 'conservative' conveyors of hate on the radio. It would make my skin crawl and my ears bleed, and it broke my heart to hear my mom quote that shit as fact.

And now it appears that some liberal commentators have decided that this approach works. It appears that reason. empathy, and civility are becoming increasingly scarce. Jeff Jarvis seems to be so caught up in his antipathy to Bernie Goldberg that he can't seem to see what that video segment would look like to someone who doesn't know any of the people on that show from Adam. Both sides seem to just be preaching to the choir, and have no interest in reasoned discourse, and never entertain the possibility that the other side, no matter how distasteful to them, might have an important contribution to make. No self-reflection. Decisions that get made by the loudest voice are rarely the best decisions, but no one can hear the quiet voices any more, because of the loud ones.

Reflection on yourself: the ability to step outside yourself for a moment, and see yourself as might look to an objective observer. If you can do that, you find yourself trying to minimize how petty you look to that observer. :)

Revenge of the Sith. No spoilers here, unless you have been living in a hole for the last 20 years. Just voicing a complaint. Is it only crappy acting (Hayden "I can only make this single facial expression" Christensen)? Anakin's "love" for Padme is about as convincing my 350-pound friend's resolve to eat better. Unfortunately, his supposed lust for power is equally unconvincing. He basically comes off as a moody teenager.

I don't know what Lucas was shooting for. I imagine he would like us to have felt a combination of horror, sympathy, and revulsion, as we watched Anakin go down the path to the dark side. Instead, I felt nothing but contempt. Anakin came off as the worst sort of adolescent. Constantly angsty. Complaining about lack of consistency and integrity in others, when he is showing exactly that lack. His actions which should have come off as a result of mind-wrecking worry and hubris just came off as the work of an overpowerful idiot.

Interesting piece: Why smart people defend bad ideas - scottberkun.com
I can speak from a certain perspective when I look at this. It's not just cleverness that sometimes carries the argument. Just speaking with apparent certainty goes along way. I know this from having knowingly spouted non-sensical foolishness and having people believe me.

Part of where clever people get you is that you don't want to seem less clever than they are, and there is the biggest trap of all. Even when I am convinced I am much more clever than the person trying to convince me of something questionable, if I have any doubts at all about where they are going, I just tell them I am just not up to their level, and need some things broken down further before we can proceed. Stroking their ego to begin with. Unfortunately, this is usually the set up, because this is where I point out the big hole in the logic, usually. The point, though, is that if you are not trying to defend your image as a smart person, you are less susceptible to clever, yet flawed, reasoning.

What an idea. Bill Clinton as a big city mayor.

Inconsequential mutterings This is my LiveJournal Page. However, if LiveJournal allows this sort of linking feature, I'm going with that.

Continuing to move in to the new house. All my stuff is here, it's the unpacking that takes a while. Well, for me, anyway. My wife is happily unpacking stuff everyday, all day.

My yogurt making continues. One thing that I have discovered that no one mentions anywhere on the web is that sealed glass vessels work best for yogurt fermentation. I've got a inexpensive Salton yogurt maker that I got for Father's day. It comes with a plastic fermentation vessel, with an annoying indentation for a spoon that I never use, and whose lid just fits on top, and doesn't seal. I preferred to store the yogurt in containers that actually seal. First, I would decant into such a container. Then, I would skip that part, and just ferment in the container that does seal. I got about equivalent results from reusing a 2 lb. yogurt container as I did with the container that came with the yogurt maker. It was definitely yogurt, but of a liquidy consistency, rather like "drinkable" yogurt. I also used an old glass jar, and sealed the screw-top for fermentation. That yogurt comes out much thicker, about the same consistency as store bought yogurt, and not quite so tart as the yogurt fermented in plastic. Since I've been going through about a quart of yogurt every couple of days, it is an experiment I've repeated a couple of times, with consistent results. The way I figure it, the commercial producers seal the containers after introducing the yogurt culture.

Other odd yogurt experiment: I've got some L. Acidophilus pills, never mind why. Just to try, I crushed one of those, and used that to inoculate some pasteurized milk. Still came out yogurt, albeit with yellow spots from the turmeric used to color the pills. Why did I try this? Well, I had thought about picking up some dry cultures, but I didn't feel like making a special trip to a health-food store. I figured, WTF, let me try one of these.

Health

I've been rebounding now for a couple of weeks. I find that I still can't keep up for the whole workout video, so I do what I can. My weight has been stable lately, but I have been snacking a bit much, lately. One positive note is that when I went running this morning, I did feel stronger, once I warmed up a bit.


I've also been continuing to make my own yogurt. I'm saving about 3/4 of the cost this way. I'm still experimenting with the various available parameters. I've got a few variables, including how far I cool the milk after repasteurizing, and plastic versus glass.

On the etiquette of instant messaging at work:

Here's a typical interaction:

Coworker: Hi?

Lorenzo: Yes?

1 minute wait

Coworker: quick question

another two minute wait

and so on. So, I've got the worst of both worlds. I'm supposed to drop everything, and wait while the slow-fingered formulates the question. And it's usually a question that isn't particularly urgent, and could have been handled fine by email.

It's really annoying. So, here's my set of guidelines for instant messaging with coworkers:

1. Make sure, before you send an instant message, that you actually need such instant response.


2. In the first message you send, include the topic of the conversation.


3. Please don't say "quick question" unless you are looking for a yes or no answer, or something as straightforward. I've had "quick questions" suck me into hour long debugging sessions.

It's not that I am not willing to work with people. It's a question of how much respect do you show other people. If you IM me the way as in the example above, for something not at all pressing, you are telling me that my time is of no value to you. It may very well be the case, but telling me so this way is not a way to get me to happily help you. Showing a lack of consideration for my time in the ways I am complaining about will have the following possible effects:

• I may be inclined to ignore instant messages from such a person.


• I will have a negative attitude towards anything such a person wants from me, and I might be inclined to throw up all the red tape I am supposed to.


• I may add that person to the list of people that cannot see if I am on-line.

It's all about respect, people.

Diet and Health

So, last Friday I got it really hammered home the importance of hydration, that is, drinking lots of water. My wife sometimes would get dizzy spells on quickly sitting up or standing up. She has fairly low blood pressure. As it turns out, the main thing for her is just keeping the fluid volume up. With that bit of info, I could have been saved a couple of big scares. I always took it for granted that running a couple of quarts low on fluid, while not ideal, is not really a problem. I tended to take in most of my fluids in the form of caffeinated beverages.

Of my own problems, I have the annoyance known as IBS, or irritable bowel syndrome. I read
this article a couple of months ago, about intentionally ingesting weakened intestinal parasites as way to treat IBS symptoms. Well, that seemed a bit drastic to me. I took a more benign approach. I am eating yogurt with live cultures most days. It has had a very positive effect. Unlike the pig whipworms, though, I find I really do have to eat it every day to maintain the effect. Plain yogurt is a bit sour for me, though, so I sweeten it with a non-nutritive sweetener like stevia, and I'm good. Flavored yogurts are basically a sweet dessert food, looking at the labels.

I'm not a TV watcher (haven't had cable or satellite since about 1994), so it took Slashdot to point me to Alton Brown's website. On his blog, he foreswears high fructose corn syrup and (partially-)hydrogenated vegetable oils. I'm down on that. I have a fondness for what's usually called fruit nectars. I had always assumed they were pretty much fruit juice and pulp. Oh, not so, when I finally looked at the label a few years back. "WTF is high fructose corn syrup? And why is it the second ingredient? Isn't the fruit already sweet enough?" I just had a bad feeling about it then. As to transmogrified vegetable oils, doing a low-carb diet for a while got me back onto natural fats. I was not avoiding them out of any aversion per se, I just found cooking with natural fats tasted better. It's only later that the newsmedia told me how terrible transfatty acids are for me. Heck, I just know short crust tastes a lot better made with lard or butter than with shortening.