Random Thoughts on Various Subjects

1. SNOW IN CAROLINA

It snowed, and South Carolina goes on lockdown. Fortunately, I have a Yankee girlfriend to show me how to drive.

I'm no climate scientist, and some brainiac will point out to me how blizzards are actually a result of global warming. He might be right. But I find it very difficult to defend Al Gore and Co. when everything tells me they are full of shit. Fuck the polar bears and all those poor kleptocracies begging for "climate justice." We are up to our balls in snow.

2. THE NEW ECONOMICS OF ABUNDANCE

As anyone who knows me will tell you, I am an amateur student of economics, business, finance, etc. The field that most interests me is the new economics of abundance spawned by the internet. Unlike scarcity which involves things like iPods, abundance deals with the content on those iPods and Kindles and what have you. The fact is that we live in an age of virtually free information, but we don't have an economics or business plan to accomodate this new world. But I have embraced this new world with gusto. I have abandoned my belief in intellectual property and share all my work freely. (Feel free to steal and share.) I have learned that a trademark is the most valuable asset you can own. And I have learned that what people save on information they spend on other things. It is the Broken Windows Fallacy turned on its head. I call it the Broken Windows Serendipity. My nerve endings just tingle with excitement over this area.

I will have a lot of new stuff on this topic as I go along.

3. KINDLE

I don't know if the Kindle will survive as a device with competition from other reading devices and the iPad. What I do know is that I buy a lot of Kindle versions of books for my PC and iPod. I like getting my books this way, and I like paying 10 bucks for a new title instead of the bloated hardback price. I'm also fond of the Stanza app that enables you to read public domain works on the iPod.

It is obvious to me that the iPad is gigantic media consumption tool. It will encompass four main areas:

-reading
-watching videos
-listening to music
-games

You can already do this on the iPod touch, but the screen is small. Critics say the iPad is just an iPod with a bigger screen. EXACTLY! When it gets cheaper and better, I will certainly buy one.

4. TELEVISED SPORTING EVENTS

I am feeling the pull back to sports. As regular readers of the CBlog know, I expunged sports from my media consumption diet in an effort to simplify my lifestyle. It has been hard in some respects. I find it difficult to talk to other people now because sports was a safe zone for convo. But I do have more time as a result. Basically, I have a choice between talking less or watching more television.

One of the things that I am learning is that simplification is a chain reaction much like complexity is a chain reaction. In this case, the elimination of sports has led to the elimination of small talk which will inevitably lead to the elimination of certain relationships. The reality is that the vast majority of the people I encounter each day are stupid and boring. Sports made talking to these people tolerable.

5. DEATHS

Phil Harris
He was the captain of the Cornelia Marie and a fan favorite on Deadliest Catch. He was blue collar to the bone, and he will be missed.

Nodar Kumaritashvili
It takes huge balls to ride the luge, and this tragedy shows why.

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