Voting ends soon

Voting in Project 10¹⁰⁰ (i.e., “Project 10 to the 100th”), Google’s effort to promote good-doing works, ends tomorrow. Time to get over there and do the duty.

10^100th Voting

Project 10¹⁰⁰ (i.e., “Project 10 to the 100th”) is an effort by Google to promote good-doing works. I mentioned it in Dec ‘08 when I commented on a a story by Meagan Ellis of Materials World Magazine about a project by Edward Sazonov demonstrating the use of vibrations generated by passing traffic to charge a battery that would power a sensor and wireless transmitter. Project 10¹⁰⁰ received > 150,000 proposals for good-doing works, narrowed the proposals to nn, and is now soliciting public input about which ones to fund.

Last fall we launched Project 10^100, a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible. Your response was overwhelming. Thousands of people from more than 170 countries submitted more than 150,000 (or around 10^5.2) ideas, from general investment suggestions to specific implementation proposals. As we reviewed these submissions, we started noticing lots of similar ideas related to certain broad topics, and decided that combining the best aspects of these individual proposals would produce the most innovative approaches to solving some very pressing problems.

The finalists are not as specific as I thought they would be, but they are interesting. Go to Project 10 to the 100th to learn about the projects and vote. Here’s a link for my earlier post.

Mr Deity returns

As one or two of the two or three regular readers know, I’m impressed by the Mr. Deity shorts. Well, after a delay following the second season, the third season is available. I recommend it.

Lacayo deconstructs Beck’s spins

Richard Lacayo, who writes about art and architecture over at Time, has a blog entry entitled “Glenn Beck: Crack(ed) Symbologist” in which he exposes the faulty thinking that sometimes passes as analysis in popular culture. In his entry, Mr. Lacayo explains how popular commentator Glenn Beck begins (warning: muddled metaphors ahead) spinning at something close to the speed of a very fast hard disk—say, 7200 rpm—and, like a cartoon tornado, simply lifts off from reality.

Glenn Beck, the conservative commentator and self-proclaimed “rodeo clown”, found a new hobby horse the other night — secretly “communist” and “fascist” art buried into the exterior design program of Rockefeller Center. In Beck’s rant he also managed to imply that “Rockefeller”, it’s not clear which Rockefeller he meant, was also somehow a secret communist. Or was it a fascist? Or maybe both.

2009 4-Miler

I worked the Charlottesville Women’s 4-Miler yesterday, as I have pretty much every year for a long time. The setting at Foxfield is beautiful and the weather was very nice this year. The crowd was very large (I’d like to obtain a well-documented estimate of the number of spectators) and wonderfully enthusiastic. The decorations, including the banners with the names of loved ones lost to cancer, attached to the fences along the last mile or so of the course, were familiar, but they still get to me.

Imagine LA without TV

LA Times

Of course, I hope that the Mt. Wilson structures do not burn in the “Station Fire,” but it is a fantastic irony that the LA basin might loose it’s access to air-based television if they do. This fire reminds me of one that burned some of the same area when I was 11 and had just moved to the LA basin. There was a big fire in the La Cañada neighborhood and embers from it fell on the playground at Marengo School in South Pasadena (fewer than 10 air miles away). Some of the burned out embers that had been carried aloft by the convection were nearly the size of small limbs.

Hug a Zephyr

Our cat Zephyr, whom I sometimes called “Zepha-lump” because she was rarely very active and she would lie in my arms as if she was a pacifist protester, turned into a complete lump today. We had her euthanized.

With Zeph, we had lots of good times. Sometimes she would run in her sleep, like dogs do. She survived a battle with what was probably a rabid raccoon. Mostly, she just hung about on the porch. For a long time, we thought her brother was the one who defecated on the side porch. After the brother died, though, the defecation continued. I think the fecal matter was Zeph’s, but there is some disagreement between us about that conclusion.

I find it hard to euthenize a pet. The balance between the decline in their quality of life and the desire to have them in one’s arms, to sustain their lives, to protect them, and on and on—it’s a difficult balance.

I’m not doubting the decision with Zeph, though. The Lump’s quality of life was pretty poor (she was incontinent, getting little nourishment from food, physically unable to get around, and not getting much oxygen by her breathing), and it was not going to get better. So we thought it was right to help her die quickly and painlessly. But we doubt our judgements, so we asked for advice.

Our 30-year-trusted veterinarian were careful about this, as they have been in the past. They checked her carefully (vitals, organs, etc.) before we answered our question, “Do you agree?” They did.

They were calm, professional, and considerate. After the team put in a catheter, they let me hold Zeph on my lap while they injected the barbiturate and pentobarbital (I think). She was gone quickly, in my subjective judgment. They checked her vitals again (no heart beat, no respiration) and then made sure the dose was stong enough that she wouldn’t suffer. They petted Zeph, spent time with her even after she was dead, and consoled us.

Zeph was another one of our many cats who was wondefully loyal to us. I’m happy to have shared 21+ years with Zeph. I’m glad to prevent additional suffering for her. I don’t want to make any more of this—no political statements…I’m too spent—than simply to celebrate that Zeph’s time, Pat’s and my time, and these kind vets’ time all happened at the same time.

Hire an expert

If one makes, say, the average salary of a player in major league sports (say, between $1 and $5 million in the NBA, MLB, NHL, or NFL), couldn’t you pay some one a few $10K a year to review every prescribed and over-the-counter drug, supplement, or alternative medicine you considered taking so that you would know whether it would violate your league’s drug rules? I’m sorry to see that Rashard Lewis is yet another of the fallen.