Great accomplishments are overrated. I prefer to “go with the flow.”
How about you?
Cartoon shared from Calamities of Nature.
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values
A proposed $20 million New York state budget cut will likely result in closure of New York state parks. A Saratoga Springs Saratogian report says that state parks, already hit hard by previous cuts, are in peril from further cuts.
“Every region will be impacted. It’s not just small, fringe sites. Some of the largest parks might close because they’re the most expensive to operate — Jones Beach, Niagara Falls.”
Unfortunately, possible closings come at a time when people need parks most. Last year, statewide usage increased by2 million visits — from 54 million to 56 million — as residents sought inexpensive, close-to-home vacations. This year, Moreau Lake State Park’s campgrounds are already booked most weekends.
“When times are tough, people use state parks,” said Julie Stokes of Greenfield, former deputy state commissioner for operations. “The impact would be very large. A ton of people from Troy use Grafton Lakes. They bus kids out there. That park is absolutely jammed, seven days a week.”
Read more in the Saratogian: Proposed state budget imperils state parks
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We are the products of choices.
The path our lives take is the result of many, many choices. We make choices that decide our future and impact the lives of others. Decisions and choices by others affect us every day.
“I’m going to take every single sick day even if I don’t get sick; they’re mine.” — or — “I only take days off sick if I’m really feeling lousy.”
“I choose to have a positive attitude at work regardless of the problems or issues. ” – or — “How can I have a positive attitude with all the mickey mouse stuff they want us to do.”
“There aren’t any decent jobs around here, so I guess I’ll just take what I can get.” — or — “There aren’t any decent jobs around here that I’m qualified for, so I’ll do what I need to do to be able to get a better job, even if it means leaving.”
“I’m going to deal with other people based on who they are, not what they are.” — or — “You just can’t deal with those people; they aren’t like us.”
“I’m just here to earn my paycheck; I’m just going to do what I’m told.” — or — “I’m going to do what I need to do in order to be the very best that I can at this job.”
“I’m tired and grumpy because it’s been a long day, but I sure won’t take it out on the worker at the checkout counter when the product I’m buying doesn’t scan.” — or — “I don’t care about her; I just want to get done here so I can go home and have some beer.”
What are some other examples of choices that shape our lives?
day 68
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I discovered just a little while ago that access to individual posts on this blog was unavailable and commenting was not available. This was because of something I did with some files on the server earlier today — not a web host issue. I knew that I should have checked after I was done, but didn’t.
It’s all back to normal now. It was only a 30 second fix, because it’s something that happened before and I knew where to look.
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A couple of days ago, a park visitor from Spain was injured by a Yellowstone National Park bison (aka American buffalo).
“At approximately 11:25 a.m., the woman and her husband were using a pay phone in the Canyon lodging area with their backs to the road. According to witnesses, two bull bison walked down the road, passing within 20 feet of the couple. One of the bison left the road, walked up behind the woman and butted her into the air. The couple, who were facing away from the road, did not see the bison.”
The woman was taken to the Lake Clinic where she was treated for minor injuries and released.
This quite an unusual event. Bison are not usually aggressive unless someone has encroached upon their space. We have seen numerous instances where people have gotten way too close to these critters and nothing happened. Park regulations require that a minimum distance of 25 yard must be maintained from bison.
Bison are very, very common in the Canyon area.
We still hope to make it to Yellowstone this year. However, we may not have as much time available as we had originally thought.
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Climate change legislation — The Waxman/Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act pass by a very slim margin today in the US House of Representatives. I actually watched some of the debate on CSPAN. I’ve got just a few comments.
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They didn’t even have a properly collated official copy of the bill in the room during the debate. Three hundred pages were revised overnight and one of the House staff was in the process of inserting pages into the correct place in the “official copy” during the closing minutes of the floor debate.
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The debate on the floor was limited to 3 hours for a bill that may be one of the largest tax bills in the history of the country.
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While virtually every American would end up with higher energy costs as a result of the bill, as I understand it, it’s requirements would have negligible impact on global warming, if anthropogenic (human caused) global warming (AGW) were a proven fact rather than an unproven hypothesis.
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The premise of the bill is predicated on the assumption that anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is a proven scientific fact. The earth has been warming up until the last ten years. Global carbon dioxide levels have been rising, at least in part due to human activities, even during the last ten years as global temperature anomalies have been stable or dropping. While it would seem obvious to blame rising temperatures on carbon dioxide produced by man, there is no proof that continued rising CO2 will result in a continued rise in global temperatures. The predictions of rising temperatures are the product of computer climate models that assume that anthropogenic global warming is a proven scientific fact rather than an unproven hypothesis.
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Our Representative, voted against it. I think I voted against him in 2008. He’s got my vote in 2010.
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Climate change — I read material on climate change almost every day.
I am absolutely appalled at the gloom and doom, the-sky-is-falling alarmism that is in the media on a daily basis.
I’m not sure at what point I stopped simply accepting anthropogenic (human caused) global warming. I can say that for well over a year I’ve been reading a lot of climate change related material and have a much better understanding of the topic than I once had. My first blog post on climate was It’s not a hypothesis… It’s not a theory… it’s a CONSENSUS! last year.
Below is some of what I’ve come to believe and understand related to the Earth’s climate.
- Anthropogenic global warming is an unproven hypothesis.
- Even though anthropogenic global warming is an unproven hypothesis, it is likely that some warming has resulted from carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere by humans.
- There is no proof that continued rise in CO2 will result in continued rise in global temperatures.
- Carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas by absorbing infrared radiation in three narrow bands of frequencies, (2.7, 4.3 and 15 micrometers (µM)), meaning that most of the heat producing infrared radiation frequencies escapes absorption by CO2. The main peak, 15 µM, is absorbed completely within about 10 meters of the ground meaning that there is no more to absorb. Doubling the human contribution of CO2 would reduce this distance. Reducing the distance for absorption would not result in an increase in temperature.
- The science of climate change is not settled. Science is never settled. There is always more to learn, more to add.
- Consensus on climate change is not science. It’s politics. Science isn’t done by consensus, as I understand it.
- For a scientist to be a skeptic on climate change is not a bad thing. Scepticism and questioning are important aspects of science.
- The Earth appears to have been cooling overall for most of this young century — 2000 to 2009.
- The reports of the danger to polar bears are premature. They are also recycled over and over again.
- The prediction of an Arctic free of ice is premature. AMSRE-A Sea Ice Extent has 6 1/2 years of history. The sea arctic sea ice extent currently is higher than any of the other years at this point in the annual cycle. AMSRE-A (Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer – Earth Observing System).
- Antarctic sea ice extent is getting larger.
- A recent survey found Arctic ice to be thicker than expected. (radiobremen)
- The heat content of the world’s ocean is dropping – Q = mc∆T. (The Global Warming Hypothesis and Ocean Heat)
Carbon Dioxide Absorption Peaks
day 22
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In January, I wrote about a coworker’s suggestion that I apply for unemployment when the contract that I was on was over — even though I didn’t need the job when I took it. Comments on the piece overwhelming supported my decision not to apply for unemployment compensation. (see Applying for Unemployment)
The contract was over at the end of August. In the turbulent economic months since then, I’ve had a few moments where I’ve thought about the extra cushion that unemployment income could provide. However, I’ve never had a moment where I regretted my decision.
A few weeks ago I was at one of our every-other-week retirement breakfasts when I heard some fellows talking about putting in for unemployment benefits after thay had finished a contract job. The nature of the industry that we retired from is that there is a lot of opportunity for contract work for those with the right experience and/or credentials. It wasn’t surprising that the idea of putting in for unemployment had occurred to others.
Apparently a couple of them had actually applied.
They were turned down!
They weren’t qualified because they were making too much money from their pension!
Since I was a contract worker working as an employee and NOT an independent contractor, if I didn’t have any other income, I could have applied for unemployment payments. However, with my pension and other income, it didn’t seem right to apply.
In the end, I was not only morally right, but legally right, as well.
I would not have been able to receive unemployment compensation.
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Click for Exit78 Pinterest policy.
Pinterest–I tried it and …
March 21, 2012
Update 3/24/2012 — I’m reconsidering my concern over Pinterest. Pinterest has come out with revised terms and is working on making private pinboards available.
I’ve developed a Pinterest Policy page. Most pages here will be open for pinning, though the front page, archives, and selected pages will have it blocked.
A Pinterest pinboard, to me, is an online, published compilation of images that someone has collected. It’s sort of like a published scrapbook. If ya publish it, ya need to have the rights to publish the individual items in the scrapbook (compilation).
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I don’t like it.It’s a great concept – organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web.
There’s just two big sticky problems.
Copyright
The first is called copyright infringement.
Pinterest is primarily based around collecting pictures. In collecting images and “pinning” them on their pinboards, the Pinterest user is publishing copies of other peoples’ work.
Copyright of a photograph or drawing starts as soon as an image is fixed in some sort of permanent form. For electronic images, that occurs as soon as an image is saved as a file.
Making copies of this file, including publishing it somewhere other than where it is intended, violates the exclusive right of the creator of the image to make and/or approve copies. The right to copy is why it’s called copyright. If you didn’t create it and didn’t get permission, then you don’t have a right to copy, you don’t have a right to pin.
Terms of Use
The other big problem is the Pinterest terms of use.
Under the terms of use, if you use Pinterest, then you “represent and warrant that: (i) you either are the sole and exclusive owner of all Member Content that you make available through the Site, Application and Services or you have all rights, licenses, consents and releases that are necessary to grant to Cold Brew Labs the rights in such Member Content.”
The terms of use also says none of your Pinterest activities “will infringe, misappropriate or violate a third party’s patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret, moral rights or other proprietary or intellectual property rights, or rights of publicity or privacy, or result in the violation of any applicable law or regulation.”
In other words, by the terms of use that everyone agrees to before they can use Pinterest, every user is saying they have the right or permission to use every single thing that they are putting on their pinboard.
Somehow I rather doubt that many users really understand or that they even actually read the terms of use, let alone this part.
Wikipedia has an interesting statement concerning Pinterest and the issue of copyright.
While it’s an interesting concept, given the present state of the internet and current copyright laws and treaties, the design of Pinterest by its very nature fosters unintended abuse of the intellectual property rights of others.
I’ve spent too much time researching and learning about copyright. I ‘m going to have to take a pass on Pinterest.
Copy Right, Copy Sense
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