Filed Under Life and living, Podcasts, Politics
I’ve seen several of the T. Boone Pickens ads on television - the ones that talk about “bridging the gap” in our energy needs - and I’ve wondered, from afar, who the heck this T. Boone Pickens is and what his plan calls for.
After the presidential debates this evening, I decided to take a gander at his web site, at http://www.pickensplan.com/theplan/
Watching the ads, I was definitely skeptical about the Pickens Plan - it just smacks of one of those friendly, good-for-all issues that ends up in reality as a confusing, misleadingly named stab in the back that the problem it pretends to support.
The website has the same feel to it.
And T. Boone Pickens is an oil man through and through. But, he claims he’s done making money and he’s interested in what gets left behind for future generations.
Reading through the plan it doesn’t have any gotcha backdoors to it - at least as far as one can tell by the limited information available. The basic tenants are to support massive infrastructure in wind power and at the same time, invest in natural gas vehicles (mostly for fleet vehicles, not so much for personal vehicles) as an alternative to gasoline vehicles. This would act more to reduce dependence on foreign oil by transferring that need to natural gas but help less on global climate issues.
For ‘energy independence’ it would help reduce the amount of oil we need to import, and if we could convince other nations to do the same we could reduce the power other nations have gained (Iran, Russia, Venezuela) from the rising price of oil.
From an environmental perspective, it’s somewhat better to burn natural gas than oil and the support of wind power is great. It’s not a long-term solution, but it doesn’t claim to be. In the long term we clearly need to figure out hot to get away from fossil fuel engines. But is this the bridge that’s needed to get us there? Does the cost/time/effort of transitioning fleets to natural gas buy us enough environmental benefit for this to be a really suitable bridge?
For more information about energy and how it impacts the environment and global policies, I highly, highly recommend a couple of podcasts:
The first is a Fresh Air interview with Thomas Friedman who makes a strong case for how our oil dependence has really empowered nations that we’d really prefer not to empower.
The second is a Commonwealth Club of California discussion with Shirley Ann Jackson, Ph.D., President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and former Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (search for her name on the linked page). She speaks very eloquently about the importance of a comprehensive energy plan and all of the ways in which we are impacted without one.
Filed Under Photography, Podcasts
One of the topics I’ve been meaning to post about is my fairly recent infatuation with podcasts.
I’ve written before about how I was late to the iPod world as I am not always a fan of the way Apple chooses to maintain such strict control over their products. When I finally broke down and switched to an iPod, I was thrilled with the ease with which I could download podcasts onto my iPod. Prior to that, I had only played around a little with the podcast section of iTunes (yes, even though I was late to the iPod party I was an early adopter of iTunes as an excellent media manager).
One of the first podcasts that I subscribed to, and have listened to regularly, is LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process.
LensWork is a magazine that I’ve enjoyed for years, though I sheepishly have to admit I’ve never had a subscription. As much as I’ve loved the magazine, I’ve never been able to justify the cost. The images in LensWork is exceptionally presented - the publisher does an excellent job of reproducing the images and they’re presented in a meaningful portfolio fashion so that you don’t only get one or two poorly displayed images surrounded by loud advertisements but you get several pieces of work thoughtfully reproduced - in fact I think they’re among the best photographic reproductions available in a periodical.
In the series, the publisher of LensWork (Brooks Jensen), conveys thoughts and impressions on the creative process - usually around photography - but applicable to many creative endeavors. I find that I often agree with much of what he’s saying, I just haven’t taken the time to formulate thoughts on the subject and so I appreciate that he has. It’s nice to sit and listen to his rather zen-like voice and take the time to appreciate the message that he is conveying. It’s a good break from the day-to-day.
The Photography and the Creative Process podcast is published - um - well, just kind of whenever. It tends to go in spurts, depending on what else the publisher has going on I suppose. But I started listening from the beginning so I tend to be pretty far behind - which I kind of enjoy, because they’re rather short and I can often listen to a few of them at a time.
If you’re interested in the creative creation process then you should give the podcast a try - and since most ring in at around 3-4 minutes, it’s a small investment to make.
Filed Under Life and living
Radiohead totally rocked the Outside Lands festival last night and the thousands and thousands of people who were there were into it. At least that was our perspective from 100 yards back. They played for the 2 hours that they were allotted and managed to get in a ton of songs and put on a great show.
The festival made for an exciting scene but it definitely showed some flaws in design. First off, there are way too many choke points in the grounds. The crowds are funnelled into these smaller spaces throughout the grounds. This was bad enough between acts but at the end of the night it was a pain in the ass at best and close to suffocating at its worst. There were many places where the crowds just trampled over fences in order to move around. Second the lines for drink IDs, bathrooms and food were crazy. Hopefully this will be better on the weekend and perhaps its just because everyone got to Friday’s show later. Finally, who decides to put a stage down in a hollow so that it’s impossible to see the act? We were really disapointed that we were completely unable to see Beck even though we were pretty close to the stage.
But I think the most frustrating thing about the whole show was the constant “Wall of tall.” Since when have I been short? I was amazed at the amount of big and talls at this show. Is the younger generation taller than mine? Is there something in thoses growth hormones we’ve been injecting into their food supply all these years?I found myself constantly straining my neck around some Amazon just in front of me. I’m gonna have to invest in some risers if I’m gonna keep going to these shows..
Filed Under Africa
I just saw this video on the New York Times site. It’s a nice quick overview of Namibia and shows a couple of the places that we (and most travelers to Namibia) went: Sossusvlei and Swakopmund. Many of the images are similar to those that I (and most photographers) took shown here in this album from Sossusvlei
Filed Under Friends Sites Fridays
My Brother-in-law’s family has owned this farm in Clinton, New York for generations.
Several years ago, one generation officially handed it down to the next and after figuring out exactly how that should work and who wanted to be involved, my Brother-in-law and his 2 brothers took over primary responsibility of the property.
They decided that they wanted to keep the property in the family, and be able to visit it and use it as a retreat for family get-togethers. But they wouldn’t be able to use it all too often, so why not let others use it for the same purpose? Why not allow people to rent out one of the farm properties for reunions, weddings or College-related activities (Hamilton and Colgate colleges are nearby) like Parents’ weekends or Graduations.
Years ago this would have been a complicated matter unless one of them was willing to give up their day job. But in today’s information age, they’re able to make it work - even with one of the brothers out here in California - all thanks to the web.
They set up a site at HardingFarm.com and started marketing their property. They don’t do a lot of active marketing but rather rely mostly on referrals from the colleges or word of mouth. It would be easy for them to increase their marketing if they wanted to though, using the familiar tools like Google’s Ads, etc, But they get enough business where this hasn’t been necessary.
The site also houses some tools that they can use to manage the scheduling of the property. So that each of the brothers has easy access to the property’s calendar and can see whether the property is rented or not. Add to that online banking with some of the national banks that we see these days and each one of them can access a local branch to manage funds.
What’s most impressive about this is that these guys were able to put together a website completely on their own to manage all of these activities - no outside consultation fees were paid to any company. The web development toos are just that good - and they’re still using technology that’s several years old. Now, you might recognize on their site the lack of a graphic designer, but that’s OK for a sight like this. If anything, it adds to the down-home feel of the farm life that renters are signing up for in renting the property.
There are things that they could do to bring the site up to 2008 standards and they’re considering an overhaul of the site, but the site as is has served them well for the past several years and I’m impressed that they were able to accomplish it on their own.
Filed Under Life and living
Not too long ago, I read a great book that’s part of an intriguing series. The book was The Pixies’ Doolittle (33 1/3) by Ben Sisario. I’m a big fan of the Pixies and Doolittle is right up there with my all time favorite albums (though I do like the earlier Pixies albums a little better). But this is not just about the Pixies. This book is part of a series that deconstructs well known albums from the past several decades. This was my first foray into the series, and it will not be the last.
It’s really interesting to get behind the scenes and see how the musicians put the album together, one song at a time. I found the book to be really inspiring as any good documentation about an artistic process is bound to get the creative juices flowing. In this book, primarily through interviews with Black Francis, the reader is brought into the world of late-80s Boston when the Pixies were young and starving and at the peak of their creative abilities. It’s also oddly compelling to listen to the story as told by Frank Black so many years later, driving around Oregon in a very different life.
Each song on the album is deconstructed - the thoughts behind the lyrics, the decisions about the instruments, the sound and the recording sessions that captured it all. It’s also a good look into the recording industry at a high-level and can give outsiders like me an appreciation for the role of the record producer. I especially enjoyed reading the book alongside my iPod, so that I could listen to the track, read about it, and then listen a few more times picking up the newly discovered little gems that I’d read about.
I have had an interest in music for most of my life, and lately I’ve been interested into the mechanics behind the albums that I’ve grown up with. I’ve watched documentaries about tours and bands and the making of albums like Nirvana’s Nevermind or Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon (both of these documentaries I found in the used DVD section of Amoeba records). The 33 1/3 series
provides an excellent read for so many albums that are of interest to me - and at such a small size, and easy-to-digest chapters (organized around the tracks) these books are no brainers for short commutes or moments that would otherwise be spent wasted.
