Thu 20 November 2008 9:00 AM
Divestment: Week 13
11/13: Sorted through some old photos and trashed a number of them.
11/14: Tossed two glass tea light holders that had been pressed into occasional service as shot glasses.
11/15: Gave The Omnivore's Dilemma to Gareth.
11/16: Junked three dusty flower-shaped float-in-water candles. Somehow, in the years since these were given to us, we haven't had a decorating need for burning, floating wax flowers.
11/17: Trashed some owner's manuals, including one for a DVD player and one for a wireless network card.
11/18: Trashed an old iPod battery.
11/19: Added In the Heart of the Sea to the bookshelf of La Madeleine in Reston.
11/14: Tossed two glass tea light holders that had been pressed into occasional service as shot glasses.
11/15: Gave The Omnivore's Dilemma to Gareth.
11/16: Junked three dusty flower-shaped float-in-water candles. Somehow, in the years since these were given to us, we haven't had a decorating need for burning, floating wax flowers.
11/17: Trashed some owner's manuals, including one for a DVD player and one for a wireless network card.
11/18: Trashed an old iPod battery.
11/19: Added In the Heart of the Sea to the bookshelf of La Madeleine in Reston.
Wed 12 November 2008 10:18 AM
Divestment: Week 12
Last Saturday I got rid of a book: Unamuno: A Philosophy of Tragedy by José Ferrater Mora (translated by Philip Silver). I found the title page in my pants pocket, where I had stashed it, knowing I would forget about the divestment.
I have never read a word by Miguel de Unamuno, yet I admire him, largely on the strength of Martin Gardner's reverence. Wikipedia tells an interesting story about a confrontation near the end of his life.
11/6: Trashed some magazines.
Smithsonian, September 1998, with a short version of Simon Winchester's great story about the OED as told in The Professor and the Madman.
(Link requires an e-mail address, but it isn't verified.)
Smithsonian, February 1999, with a cover story on John Singer Sargent and a luscious three-page centerfold of Madame X.
Smithsonian, July 1999. Don't quite know why I saved it.
The Washington Post Magazine, September 2003, in which Gene Weingarten explains the problem with the French.
11/7: More basement cleanup. Old letters, a performance review and some pay stubs, my selective service card from 1990, wire, light fixture installation instructions, and several plastic bags and a box containing these articles.
11/8: Sold a 1969 Kennedy half dollar on eBay.
11/9: Returned 24 hinges that won't fit our cabinets. Trashed a nasty straw hot pad that had disappeared into the spider-eggy void below some kitchen drawers.
11/10: Found a big brown panel with some thumb holes which was probably part of some cabinet once. It didn't look familiar, so I trashed it.
11/11: Tossed some baby clothes into the donation dumpster.
11/12: An empty tin of Djarum smokes was gathering dust in the basement. Actually it contained a single, unintentionally funny, panel cut from one of the serious soap opera newspaper comic strips. I meant to get rid of it and left it on the dashboard, but don't know where it ended up.
I have never read a word by Miguel de Unamuno, yet I admire him, largely on the strength of Martin Gardner's reverence. Wikipedia tells an interesting story about a confrontation near the end of his life.
11/6: Trashed some magazines.
Smithsonian, September 1998, with a short version of Simon Winchester's great story about the OED as told in The Professor and the Madman.
(Link requires an e-mail address, but it isn't verified.)
Smithsonian, February 1999, with a cover story on John Singer Sargent and a luscious three-page centerfold of Madame X.
Smithsonian, July 1999. Don't quite know why I saved it.
The Washington Post Magazine, September 2003, in which Gene Weingarten explains the problem with the French.
11/7: More basement cleanup. Old letters, a performance review and some pay stubs, my selective service card from 1990, wire, light fixture installation instructions, and several plastic bags and a box containing these articles.
11/8: Sold a 1969 Kennedy half dollar on eBay.
11/9: Returned 24 hinges that won't fit our cabinets. Trashed a nasty straw hot pad that had disappeared into the spider-eggy void below some kitchen drawers.
11/10: Found a big brown panel with some thumb holes which was probably part of some cabinet once. It didn't look familiar, so I trashed it.
11/11: Tossed some baby clothes into the donation dumpster.
11/12: An empty tin of Djarum smokes was gathering dust in the basement. Actually it contained a single, unintentionally funny, panel cut from one of the serious soap opera newspaper comic strips. I meant to get rid of it and left it on the dashboard, but don't know where it ended up.
Wed 5 November 2008 1:11 PM
Divestment: Week 11
10/30: The November 2001 issue of Atlantic, saved on the strength of two excellent articles now available online: The Crash of EgyptAir 990 and The Curse of the Sevso Silver. That and a recent, forgettable, issue of Paste Magazine trashed.
10/31: Pitched a mismatched Schlage doorknob picked up at ReStore for fifty cents.
11/1: I can't remember what I did Saturday. I must have gotten rid of some candy.
11/2: Some square mirrors, about a foot on a side, that I found somewhere.
11/3: A length of leftover PVC pipe from a sink installation.
11/4: A spray can of "belt conditioner" that I bought hoping to quiet a squeaky alternator belt. The internet will tell you that the solution is to get proper tension in the belt and this stuff just gunks up the pulleys.
11/5: Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook, left on top of the card reader of the parking garage. The next motorist picked it up and put it back, but after a few hours it had disappeared.
10/31: Pitched a mismatched Schlage doorknob picked up at ReStore for fifty cents.
11/1: I can't remember what I did Saturday. I must have gotten rid of some candy.
11/2: Some square mirrors, about a foot on a side, that I found somewhere.
11/3: A length of leftover PVC pipe from a sink installation.
11/4: A spray can of "belt conditioner" that I bought hoping to quiet a squeaky alternator belt. The internet will tell you that the solution is to get proper tension in the belt and this stuff just gunks up the pulleys.
11/5: Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook, left on top of the card reader of the parking garage. The next motorist picked it up and put it back, but after a few hours it had disappeared.
Wed 29 October 2008 5:25 PM
Divestment: Intermission
I took the week off. Incidental disposals during the time included the October issue of The Atlantic, which I finished before the September issue, and a pair of handles that I dug up from the basement and applied to bathroom cabinets.
Looking ahead, I suspect that 52 weeks will be a stretch. Thanks to my habit of occasional trips to McKay's, my book collection no longer has many easy candidates, though I could part with some college textbooks. The CD rack has some titles that haven't been played for years, which might get me through a week or two. After that, I'll be counting dust bunnies from under the fridge.
Looking ahead, I suspect that 52 weeks will be a stretch. Thanks to my habit of occasional trips to McKay's, my book collection no longer has many easy candidates, though I could part with some college textbooks. The CD rack has some titles that haven't been played for years, which might get me through a week or two. After that, I'll be counting dust bunnies from under the fridge.
Fri 24 October 2008 10:00 AM
Selling It
Here's a NYT book review.
As a publisher, how do you get the most bang out of this copy? Put these excerpts on the back cover:
After reading the book, I suggest excerpts more along these lines:
"Selling It" borrowed from the entertaining feature from Consumer Reports.
As a publisher, how do you get the most bang out of this copy? Put these excerpts on the back cover:
"An exciting spy story, which is at the same time a lively international comedy ... A well-informed, up-to-the-minute political parable, incisive and instructive ... rich ... poignant ... fascinating."
After reading the book, I suggest excerpts more along these lines:
"Portentous ... rather wooden ... Mr. le Carré is less good at portraying ... professional spies ... A sham and a mess ... distressing ... horse manure ... inherently pointless."
"Selling It" borrowed from the entertaining feature from Consumer Reports.
Wed 22 October 2008 11:17 PM
Divestment: Week 10
10/16: Trashed some doily-like placemats. They reminded me of another Feynman anecdote.
10/17: There was an opened jar of peanut butter in my desk drawer. It was that natural stuff, with the oil separated on top, and seemed to be holding up pretty well after some months of neglect, so I moved it to the office refrigerator.
10/18: Aesop's Fables left in the men's room at Ikea.
10/19: A jar of Creatine powder and some dated spices were eliminated during a top-of-the-fridge cleaning.
10/20: An iClicker sold on eBay for $10.51. Completed listings showed prices in the $20 range, but I neglected to consider that we are now in mid-semester. I also moved that peanut butter to the trash.
10/21: Left a pair of outsized mugs with saucers in the office kitchen with a note reading "free to good home."
10/22: A medley of diverse liquids, solids, and gels found under the bathroom sink. The mugs are now serving as sugar packet containers.
10/17: There was an opened jar of peanut butter in my desk drawer. It was that natural stuff, with the oil separated on top, and seemed to be holding up pretty well after some months of neglect, so I moved it to the office refrigerator.
10/18: Aesop's Fables left in the men's room at Ikea.
10/19: A jar of Creatine powder and some dated spices were eliminated during a top-of-the-fridge cleaning.
10/20: An iClicker sold on eBay for $10.51. Completed listings showed prices in the $20 range, but I neglected to consider that we are now in mid-semester. I also moved that peanut butter to the trash.
10/21: Left a pair of outsized mugs with saucers in the office kitchen with a note reading "free to good home."
10/22: A medley of diverse liquids, solids, and gels found under the bathroom sink. The mugs are now serving as sugar packet containers.
Wed 22 October 2008 6:04 PM
Oil Wager update
Several years ago I was sufficiently impressed by Julian Simon's book The Ultimate Resource to emulate his famous wager with latter-day Malthusian Paul Ehrlich. In my bet, as documented in the dusty archives of Fiat Lux, I argued that the price of a barrel of crude oil would be lower in ten years than it was in December 2005, as compared to the price of a Big Mac. At that time it cost 19.2 Big Macs to get a barrel of light sweet crude.
Simon preferred to compare commodity prices to the consumer price index, or mean wages, to show that the resource is more easily obtained regardless of inflation. My betting partner felt that the U.S. dollar was too unstable to use these indices, so we settled on The Economist's Big Mac Index, which has been fairly flat so far, rising from $3.06 to $3.57.
Today oil dropped into win territory for me for the first time in over a year. We're only about a third of the way through the term, so it will be interesting to see what comes next.
Sources:
http://www.economist.com/markets/bigmac/
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/crude2.html
Simon preferred to compare commodity prices to the consumer price index, or mean wages, to show that the resource is more easily obtained regardless of inflation. My betting partner felt that the U.S. dollar was too unstable to use these indices, so we settled on The Economist's Big Mac Index, which has been fairly flat so far, rising from $3.06 to $3.57.
Today oil dropped into win territory for me for the first time in over a year. We're only about a third of the way through the term, so it will be interesting to see what comes next.
Sources:
http://www.economist.com/markets/bigmac/
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/crude2.html
Tue 21 October 2008 9:48 AM
Who Said It
[A country's] leader ... has ordered the abolishment of most of the government ministries and handing over their powers to the people. "For years, [citizens] have been unhappy with the workings of their country's ministries which have been transformed into a labyrinthine bureaucracy in which corruption and maladministration reign," [the leader] told [his] parliament late on Sunday.
"Apart from the main departments of defence, internal security and foreign affairs and those responsible for strategic projects like the Great Man-Made River and airport and road construction," state ministries will be "abolished" the ... leader said, according to AFP. The 37-billion-dollar a year budget allocated to the ministries should instead "be shared among the people so that they can manage their affairs themselves," [the leader] told the session of the General People's Congress in the coastal city of [...].
According to him, the cabinet is not needed as it had failed to manage the country's huge oil earnings. He stressed big projects were behind schedule and so ordinary people should themselves devise a new way of sharing out oil revenues. "All citizens have the right to benefit from the oil funds. They should take the money and do whatever they want with it," he said, according to Reuters.
"Projects in several sectors are pending. This is a proof that the committees have failed. It's a failure. The administration has failed. The committees have failed in everything. They could not even train good artists and singers." "These committees will be replaced spontaneously by real committees to be created everywhere by citizens. Citizens will get part of the oil revenue directly. They don't need intermediaries," he said.
"Apart from the main departments of defence, internal security and foreign affairs and those responsible for strategic projects like the Great Man-Made River and airport and road construction," state ministries will be "abolished" the ... leader said, according to AFP. The 37-billion-dollar a year budget allocated to the ministries should instead "be shared among the people so that they can manage their affairs themselves," [the leader] told the session of the General People's Congress in the coastal city of [...].
According to him, the cabinet is not needed as it had failed to manage the country's huge oil earnings. He stressed big projects were behind schedule and so ordinary people should themselves devise a new way of sharing out oil revenues. "All citizens have the right to benefit from the oil funds. They should take the money and do whatever they want with it," he said, according to Reuters.
"Projects in several sectors are pending. This is a proof that the committees have failed. It's a failure. The administration has failed. The committees have failed in everything. They could not even train good artists and singers." "These committees will be replaced spontaneously by real committees to be created everywhere by citizens. Citizens will get part of the oil revenue directly. They don't need intermediaries," he said.
Wed 15 October 2008 10:46 PM
Divestment: Week 9
10/9: Got rid of the box a kitchen knife came in that we won't be returning after all, and some rubber hose.
10/10: Trashed four or five pairs of old underwear. The labels had come loose, revealing scratchy hardened glue. I bet that doesn't happen to Michael Jordan. (Back-dated from Saturday.)
10/11: Left Frankenstein at Panera in Reston Town Center.
10/12: A bucket of gravel had been sitting in the laundry room for some time. Yes, a bucket of gravel. You just never know. I dumped it into a void under the front porch and covered it over with cement left over from another project. I might have tossed in some gold ingots too, I can't remember.
10/13: Threw out some old socks, and returned a power supply to MicroCenter.
10/14: More basement scraps: plywood, drywall, and backerboard.
10/15: Rudyard Kipling's "Baa Baa Black Sheep and The Gardner" tossed into the bed of a pickup truck parked at George Mason University.
10/10: Trashed four or five pairs of old underwear. The labels had come loose, revealing scratchy hardened glue. I bet that doesn't happen to Michael Jordan. (Back-dated from Saturday.)
10/11: Left Frankenstein at Panera in Reston Town Center.
10/12: A bucket of gravel had been sitting in the laundry room for some time. Yes, a bucket of gravel. You just never know. I dumped it into a void under the front porch and covered it over with cement left over from another project. I might have tossed in some gold ingots too, I can't remember.
10/13: Threw out some old socks, and returned a power supply to MicroCenter.
10/14: More basement scraps: plywood, drywall, and backerboard.
10/15: Rudyard Kipling's "Baa Baa Black Sheep and The Gardner" tossed into the bed of a pickup truck parked at George Mason University.
Wed 8 October 2008 11:38 PM
Divestment: Week 8
10/2: I forgot to get rid of anything.
10/3: Left "51 Languages of the World" CD-ROM on top of an Exxon pump.
10/4: Trashed a worn-out pair of navy loafers that let puddles leak in through the soles.
10/5: Dumped a satchel. It was old and ragged, but not old and ragged in the good way that a satchel can be.
10/6: Dave told me that he subloaned the copy of Adrift that I loaned him, and I'm hoping the book will have a one-way voyage with a happy ending, like its author. I was going to chuck The Dead out the car window, maybe toward a bus stop, but now I can't find it.
10/7: Left The Dead in the envelope supply box at a drive-up ATM.
10/8: Dropped To Build a Fire and Other Stories in a neighbor's mailbox.
10/3: Left "51 Languages of the World" CD-ROM on top of an Exxon pump.
10/4: Trashed a worn-out pair of navy loafers that let puddles leak in through the soles.
10/5: Dumped a satchel. It was old and ragged, but not old and ragged in the good way that a satchel can be.
10/6: Dave told me that he subloaned the copy of Adrift that I loaned him, and I'm hoping the book will have a one-way voyage with a happy ending, like its author. I was going to chuck The Dead out the car window, maybe toward a bus stop, but now I can't find it.
10/7: Left The Dead in the envelope supply box at a drive-up ATM.
10/8: Dropped To Build a Fire and Other Stories in a neighbor's mailbox.
