The Future of Suburban Living

As the top 20% crowd into the cities, voluntarily as that is where all the good stuff is within walking distance including most of the jobs that support the top 20% what happens to the suburbs that they leave?  Property values crater, and it becomes reasonable for the bottom 80% to achieve the American Dream of suburban living.  Rents in the strip malls and local shopping centers crater along with the property values, and become affordable for bodegas, Dollar stores, and other services catering to the lower income groups.  Assuming existing transit is maintained, (roads don't matter) as travel outside the neighborhood is mainly for jobs serving the 20%.  The 20% will insure it is maintained as they don't use it anyway and they need the service people who are gentrified out of the city.  

The current suburban standard of 4-5 bedrooms and 2-3 baths will serve an extended family of many as well as it serves the current family of 3.  The family room or a big downstairs room will be turned into a dorm for the kids and the adults will occupy the 4-5 bedrooms.  The modern luxury kitchen will easily serve dozens as well or better than it serves 3.

One can expect the current suburban developments to become ethnic enclaves, since once the block is busted and prices crater further, friends and families will join the blockbuster and remake the development to serve their needs.  The fences will come down and the large backyards will connect to be a big playground for the neighborhood.

It is happening as we chat, many suburban neighborhoods and cities connected by transit to the urban core are now ethnic enclaves, and the white homeowners are taking the money and running while the money is still there.  The elderly to "Adult communities" and the working ethnics are blockbusting a new community for their ethnic group.  

Solar Roof Tile Demonstration Project

 Now that Tesla's new Solar Tile System is actually working on a couple of real roofs, anybody considering a new roof, especially on new construction, should get on the list now!  If you need the new roof sooner cheap asphault with conventional solar at the same time should be considered.  If you don't need a new roof get solar anyway before the incentives run out in 2019.  The money you save is huge.  

 A hidden savings of a solar house in sunny, hot climates--that is most of the West--is that the 40% will be on the south and or west side and use most of the sun's energy for power and the rest of the roof radiates or vents heat. The savings on AC costs are huge. With solar on only half of my south and west facing roof our house stays cool on the hottest 100+ degree days (Mediterranean climate, cool nights.) The convection wind in my attic as the heat blows out of the East (hot) vent is actually strong at the roof peak. 


 Tesla (Solar City) has a perfect demonstration project for their cooperation with utilities right in their back yard.  There is a fallow suburban solar farm in West San Jose, Santa Clara, and Cupertino that is waiting to be developed.  

  The area was developed as single family large homes in the 1950s and most of the homes are oriented east-west with large south facing pitched roofs many of which are in need of new roofing.  All are grid connected and there are several PG&E substations that can site industrial Powerpack load management systems to deal with the solar hockey stick in the evening.

 Tesla should combine with PG&E to offer free south roof replacement using the just announced attractive solar tiles.  Each roof would generate a large excess of peak power on 263 (average per year) sunny days even if the homeowner is given free power in exchange for the roof easement.  Tesla and PG&E might also consider offering a Powerwall  to each homeowner to provide distributed management of the hockey stick peak reducing the distribution losses.  Off peak power and weather backup would still be provided by PG&E from current wind and conventional generation.  


 The whole project could be phased in as tiles become available on a worst roof first basis, with early load managed installations heavily advertised by both Tesla and PG&E to build local and remote demand. Regular solar panels could also be installed as an interim solution.  


 A suburban solar farm has none of the environmental, visual, and distribution issues of a remote solar installation, and the maintenance infrastructure is already in place.  


 Disclaimer: I am a minor stockholder in Tesla and am not a candidate for the program as I already have solar power.  

OPD 7/28/17

Illnesses of Older People.

I recently had to deal with a diagnosis of serious throat cancer.  The reflexive recommendation of the Tumor Board for cancer of this stage was Radiation Therapy and simultaneous Chemotherapy starting ASAP. Radiation Therapy for throat cancer has a known side effect of damage to the vocal chords, which as a lifelong singer with a concert coming up I could not allow. 

This dilemma caused me to pull together a lot of things that had been in the round tuit box for some time.  First and foremost get the Advanced Directive registered with my health provider.  Secondly figure out what my priorities for the rest of my life should be.  Cancer, like strokes, heart disease, and many other ailments are to old age what head and neck injuries, joint damage, and wounds are to younger people.  If it doesn't kill you, you have to decide what compromises you have to make to continue to live a meaningful life worth dying for.  In other words, get your living priorities articulated in a way that can be discussed with others that are significant in your life including your medical team.  

At 76 I am well aware that life is finite and death will come sooner or later, preferably much later but not at the cost of compromising those things that make life worthwhile.  While alive my priorities sorted out to be 

1. Don't die.
2. Live as you have enjoyed living most of your life, in my case keep singing among several other high priority activities that make up my daily life.  
3. Deal with serious health issues in a way that keep the above in perspective.  

In my case once I convinced the tumor board that radiation was not an option, they recommended an accelerated and dangerous Chemo protocol that would allow me to sing the concert if it didn't kill me. Knowing the risks I elected the protocol which indeed almost killed me, but knowing the risks enabled good choices of emergency treatment which allowed me to sing the the concert.       

And many more as it turned out the protocol worked beyond most medical expectations and at this point the tumor and metastases are gone according to the usual cancer scans.  There is nothing useful that medicine can do at this point but watch for a recurrence.  

11/1/17 It did come back and some harder choices are to be made, but technology improves and radiation is now able to miss the larynx.  We shall see. Halfway through and I am still singing.    

Poe's Law

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 

Poe's law is an Internet adage which states that, without a clear indicator of the author's intent, parodies of extreme views will be mistaken by some readers or viewers for sincere expressions of the parodied views.^[1][2][3]

History[edit]

"Poe's law" was originally written by Nathan Poe in 2005, in a post on christianforums.com, an Internet forum about Christianity. The post was written in the context of a debate about creationism, where a previous poster had remarked to another user "Good thing you included the winky. Otherwise people might think you are serious."^[4] Poe then replied, "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is uttrerly [sic] impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won't mistake for the genuine article."^[1] The original statement of Poe's law referred specifically to creationism, but it has since been generalized to apply to any kind of fundamentalism or extremism.^[3]  


Corollary I:
Parodies of extreme views of belief systems will always be accepted as TRUTH™ by adherents to the belief system.
Corollary II:
Any fundamentalist preaching on a belief system political or religious is indistinguishable from parody.

How to Spend Your Stimulus Payment

From an unknown email meme.  Courtesy Paul Carrubba 
Economics in a nutshell.

Sometime this year, we taxpayers will again receive another 'Economic Stimulus' payment.   This is indeed a very exciting program, and I'll explain it by using a Q & A format:   Q. What is an 'Economic Stimulus' payment ?   A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.   Q.Where will the government get this money ?   A. From taxpayers.   Q. So the government is giving me back my own money ?   A. Only a smidgen of it.   Q. What is the purpose of this payment ?   A. The plan is for you to use the money to purchase a ; high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy.   Q. But isn't that stimulating the economy of China ?   A. Shut up.   Below is some helpful advice on how to best help the U.S. Economy by spending your stimulus check wisely:   * If you spend the stimulus money at Wal-Mart, the money will  ; go to China or Sri Lanka .   * If you spend it on gasoline, your money will go to theArabs.   * If you purchase a computer, it will go to India , Taiwan or  ; China ...   * If you purchase fruit and vegetables, it will go to Mexico , Honduras and Guatemala ...   * If you buy an efficient car, it will go to Japan or Korea .   * If you purchase useless stuff, it will go to Taiwan .   * If you pay your credit cards off, or buy stock, it will go  ; to management bonuses and they will hide it offshore.   Instead, keep the money in America by:   1) Spending it at yard sales, or   2) Going to ball games, or   3) Spending it on prostitutes, or   4) Beer or   5) Tattoos.   (These are the only American businesses still operating in the U.S. )   Conclusion:   Go to a ball game with a tattooed prostitute that you met at a yard  ; sale and drink beer all day !   No need to thank me, I'm just glad I could be of help.

Safer Restrooms and Locker rooms...

... are coed accessible. Properly designed any public multi-person restroom and locker room has latchable doors on the toilets and changing/shower stalls. Making the partitions full length would be a trivial modification. Even men don't like foot tapping under the usual partial partition. Partitioned urinals generally need no doors although a few would be nice for the drop drawers men and women that choose them for urination. All women know that men pee standing up and leering at mens' hip pockets is a generally unsatisfactory experience for all genders. Cutting a door between the men's side and the women's side would provide equal access to the toilets and showers and equalize the lines at intermissions and breaks. The men's side and the women's side would still be different in the vanity area, reflecting the usually different grooming needs, and the usual sloppiness of men whose mothers don't follow them around to clean up. 

In a mixed facility the good guys could at least in theory protect all from the bad guys however they were dressed. In general a bigger group is safer than a smaller one and a predator alarm could be built in on both sides as in slack times sexes would still normally segregate. Ladies rooms are social, mens rooms are not.

Social Support Groups

Human society is ultimately organized into tribes once local and generally related.  Disruptions such as war, famine, predatory tribes, and recently industrialization have dispersed tribes but religion and ethnicity have maintained tribes as a primary source of social support and traditional values.  A more recent disruption has been the availability of of higher education and the teaching of rational thinking to a broad range of people both economically and religiously.  The religions are trying to keep their teachings in their higher education institutions, but staying competitive means teaching STEM and philosphical reasoning which are inimicable to blind belief and ethnic solidarity.  Therefore tribes are stratifying more on educational attainments and less on traditional values.  These stratifications create new tribal groups for which the concept of Social Support Group or SSG is more general and descriptive as it may include traditional tribal values as well as educational stratification.

Humans as Tribal Entities.

  Humans are tribal animals.   For most of our existence the tribe, however it was defined was critical to our very existence.  Any serious violation of the mores of the tribe or the tribal elders gets one thrown off the sleigh to the pursuing wolves.

  Until one is sure of alternative tribal support questioning any important belief using the null hypothesis that the belief is false is generally fatal as expulsion is the usual penalty for even questioning any tribal belief.   

  For much of human history gods and goddesses, if any, were local and the head of the tribe was a real person or council of people that were at least theoretically accessible to all members of the tribe.  The tribal leaders and even members might consult the local deities or ask for blessings,  but the tribal leaders and not the dieties were the source of the mores of the tribe. Tribes were generally small and concerned with tribal cohesion, cooperation and protection from predation.  Some intra-tribal conflict was common, generally territorial but occasionally philosophical (for lack of a better word) as some tribal mores were predatory.  See Spartans in ancient Greece. 


  The most important predators were rogue humans that either left or were expelled from their home tribes frequently taking a few discontents with them to try to figure out a way to survive.  By hunter/gatherer behavior if the land would support them or predation on other tribes if the tribe was too small to farm successfully.  Once agriculture was common and meat animals were domesticated the pickings in the wild were slim especially for a tribal group which left predation as the only option.      

 

Gods and Dogs

I submit that you're mistaking a side effect of Duverger's law as being significantly more objective than it is. That's the tail wagging the god.

Like · Reply · 1 hr · Edited

Fox Circe "Tail wagging the god."

That is perhaps the most appropriate typo I've typed.

Like · Reply · 2 · 1 hr

Jonathan Korman I will be stealing that typo in conversations to come, count on it.

Like · Reply · 1 · 30 mins

Carlin Black No real difference. Gods and dogs will do anything you want them to do if you praise them and give them treats.

Satire as Religious TRUTH™ - You Can't Lay It On Too Thick

This is an unpublished work in progress on Thinking on the Blue Roads.  

Here it is a collection of satire cum religion thinking

From a recent facebook exchange on Pastafarianism:

The funny thing is, what started as a satire of religion is going to turn into a genuine religious faith. If it hasn't already.

 It has a coherent set of precepts and beliefs, and adherents who purposely follow it/them.

The entire Book of Mormon is a joke perpetrated on an annoyingly pious young man in New England by his gay, atheist friend Walt Whitman.  The Mormons suppress literary analysis like work count and stylistic and content parallels but they cannot suppress any literate person from comparing the Book of Mormon with Leaves of Grass on a boring few day stay in a Salt Lake City hotel. 

I read the Book of Mormon on the first night of that boring stay (no booze, no friends) and could not miss the resemblance to a satire of the Bible I wrote in High School.  I gave myself 20 lashes with the monster's noodly appendages for not naming my angel Moroni, but chalked it up to a lack of literary genius.  The next day I got my copy of Leaves of Grass out of my suitcase and read it side by side with the Book of Mormon.  No brainer - same author.  I would not put it past Whitman to have given his friend "magic glasses" and told him where in the woods to dig.  I am sure Whitman kept a copy or revision of his satire and cleaned up parts of it for his future writings.  I still have mine.  You may have seen parts of it on beliefnet©.  

 http://jcarlinsv.blogspot.com/search/label/Jahwist

Hey!  Don't leave out the woman who told all of the best stories in the bible: the Jahwist.

If you read J's stories with an intelligent woman author in mind the misogyny of the traditional oral history is clear from the ironic retelling of the Garden story as a prime example.  "The woman made me do it."  The woman is the only reasonable person in the whole tale.  Both God and Adam look like idiots. 

But any reading of scripture confirms your thesis that God is a human invention.  Probably not the invention of the vuvuzelas in fancy dresses in over decorated balconies, they aren't smart enough to do anything but use God for controlling their sheep.  But some of the prophets, apostles, a preacher, and some "interpreters" were smart enough to give the vuvuzelas plenty to work with.  Both for good and for awfulness. 

A Schizophrenic Trinity?

Thoughtful theist: God would simply be strictly identical to the plurality of the three divine persons.

Blü:  No. God would be strictly identical not onto to the plurality of the three, but simultaneously strictly identical to EACH of them.

Neither is correct.  God is a single entity with three personalities striving for dominance only one of which can be expressed at any one time.  And this all before there were serotonin antagonists to help. 

For the Jews the angry, vengeful, murderous, personality was dominant, although the priestly rule-maker tried to keep the people under control, and the storyteller Jahwist tried to make sense of it all for humans. 

For Catholics and many Christians the forgiving, empathetic and human centered personality is dominant, although he seems to have had trouble keeping the "My Way or the Highway" rule-maker under control, especially when the political pressure on the humanist became too intense and he had to suppress that personality. 

Other Christians focus on the "My Way" personality. 

It is very simple they all worship God, and the necessary personality shows up at the right time.
In other words if you want vengeance you pray to the father manifestation of the schizophrenic God; if you want mercy pray to the son manifestation; and if you want wisdom pray to the ghost manifestation. 

Probably why prayers are sung.  The music wakes up the right manifestation.  When you pray a Kyrie Eleison or an Ave Maria it alerts the son that He ought to pay attention.  When you pray a Dies Irae you alert dad that somebody needs to be terrified.   And a Psalm alerts the ghost that you need help with the interpretation. 

The Creation of Eve

The birth of Eve - Beliefnet:

"Agnostic wrote:

You're absolutely right. Clearly Eve was a divine creation, separate from Adam. Eve was created in the divine image of God Herself. In contrast, Adam evolved from primates with lower intelligence. It should be obvious that women are innately superior to males.

The Bible shows this. The very name for 'the Lord' is Yahvah. Eve in Hebrew is Chavah. If you look at the original Hebrew letters, they are even more nearly identical.

Each time a female is born, it is another divine creation. Males, on the other hand, bear far too much similarity to apes of lesser intelligence. It should be obvious.

The Genesis story shows God leading the animals and beasts to Adam for a potential mate, because Adam was just an animal. Adam almost chose a dog for a mate. But God, in Her infinite wisdom, realized Adam was not capable of living without divine help, so God gave a replica of Herself to watch over Adam.

This is clear from the Hebrew word, usually translated as 'help mate' It is 'Ezer,' a word which does mean help. But in the Bible, it only appears as a term for God Herself, or for Eve. David says, 'God is my Help (Ezer)' Eve, the Woman, was Adam's Help (Ezer). It was Adam who needed help, divine assistance. Eve was provided. She did not evolve. She had a separate divine creation.

Scientists generally are correct. Adam evolved. But religion is also correct, Eve was a Divine Creation. All the violence is the world is caused by men, who have barely evolved past their lower primate origins. Even with divine assistance from women, they often are unable to advance beyond their atavistic nature."

J'C: In light of Harold Bloom's theory that "J" was a woman, the irony in Genesis 2 is, with this post, beautifully explained. 

Fundy:  Donald Duck has CREATED nothing!  The Walt Disney Corporation created the animated Donald Duck out of human imagination and human-developed technologies!

 If the Jahwist had not been the Disney of her time it is likely we wouldn't even have a Bible, or Torah.  Can you imagine worshiping a book compiled from P, E, and R if you left out J?  It is hard enough to wade through all that crap with the leavening of J.  All that would be left is a soggy matzoh.

If J wasn't a great storyteller we probably would all be using a different book.  All the good stories you remember from the Bible were J's.

 I will even "Celebrate" the traditional Christian/Catholic God, although one might detect a bit of irony in my interpretation of the celebration, but that is a long tradition in the Abrahamics, and the true believers interpret the irony as faith so it is a win-win for all.  Three of the most famous and effective Requiem Masses were written by atheists along with some of the most beautiful interpretations of the traditional Mass and ritual prayers. The church paid artists well, and the artists knew that too much was not enough for believers.  



"I would say the Pieta is an incredibly beautiful and emotionally powerful work. I first saw it as a young dogmatic atheist and was moved by the universal humanity of a mother grieving for a dead child. I saw it again as one better educated in Christian theology and creed, and saw not only the humanity of the mother grieving for the divine sacrifice, but also, more than a little resentment, I carried and nurtured your child for this?

I don't know how much of what I saw was put there by Michelangelo, and how much was put there by me. But in studying art, I do not assume divine inspiration, even if the artist is doing a professionally excellent job for a religious client. Editorial comments which are masked by the believers superficial interpretation, may nonetheless be in the art for those who wish to see. Note that even bad art is not really looked at if it tells a religious story. See the stations of the Cross in any Catholic Church."

I have been thinking a lot about what the composer/artist is putting into the music/art commissioned by the church. Of course the believer will take it with a large dollop of faith and not really think much about it. Also some composers Messiaen is a prime example put their art in the service of God. But many of the others I wonder about. One believer claimed Mozart was divinely inspired. I wonder about the dueling sopranos in the Grand Mass. They seem to be a bit much, and the Ave Verum Corpus in a Major key, and when Christ is pierced shift to another Major key?? An absolutely beautiful piece of music, but I am sure Mozart understood the text, and was at the very least indulging in a bit of irony in his setting.

Hell - Beliefnet Forums: "Although I am not a believer in an afterlife of the body or soul, I do find that a semblance of immortality is achieved in how we are remembered by those whose lives we touch. Perhaps this is why I like the Dies Irae in the mass. The trumpets sound and we think of our deceased acquaintances. Surely they are judged, as they have sown, 'He brought laughter and irony into my life' 'He was a stinking asshole. Shitting on everything that he disagreed with.'