Random Reaction

WWdN: In Exile: catching up, part two http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/4919866 Wil Wheaton is on the money as usual, talking about a lack of time to do everything we would like to do with our lives. I have WAY more ideas than I have time to execute. Totally agree with the practice discourse as well, both as it relates to creativity and to performance. Kung Fu is my classic example of performance. I have done martial arts on and off for years, and the value of practice is fairly obvious at the beginner level - you have to practice to learn the moves. But now that I am into traditional Shaolin Kung Fu , I am starting to understand more deeply how practice starts to bring pieces together. Practicing allows you to make moves without thinking about them, so you can then focus on learning to make the moves in a relaxed way, which improves speed, and paradoxically, power. The next step (I would imagine - we have not been taught this), is to bring your chi into your every move, which...

Miles Per Cob - New York Times This article in the NY Times prompted me to write about what I think should be happening with regards to the CAFE standards.  They propose that it become the "Carbon Alternative Fuel Equivalent," which is fine, but they say that the proposed changes to the CAFE standards misses the point.  I think they are overly focused on ethanol as a solution.  We need more fuel efficient cars, period.  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. made this point clearly (and presciently, only months after 9/11) here .  There is not enough ethanol available to make a huge difference in our overall gas needs, as Howard Simons notes in his article on TheStreet.com:  We could run through a similar exercise with ethanol. If we distilled the entire U.S. corn crop and used none of it for human or livestock consumption, we could displace 85 days of gasoline consumption. That is not to say ethanol cannot help us in our current situation - it can.  But not nearly as...