Journal Entries
7 Billions
Posted Oct 27, 2011
On Halloween, the world's estimated human population will surpass 7 billion. The population is doubling at an increasing rate. It has doubled in my lifetime.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=world+population+in+1967
That's 6 years earlier than I was expecting according to the 50 year rates I was taught in college. (This discrepancy is probably just due to me shifting the scale to fit my life.)
Since I was made aware of the threats of overpopulation when I was in school, I've always kept it in the back of my mind. I would think about all the implications. I would trace other social problems back to overpopulation. There are the obvious ones of starvation, over-crowding, and loss of natural habitat. And also less direct ones like crime, economic disparity and the rise of Walmart. For me, it was like playing a weird version of the Kevin Bacon game, how many connections until I could connect a problem to overpopulation.
Of course, the worst part was not seeing any obvious, plausible and ethical solutions. The rampant infanticide in China showed us that it's not something that can be legislated. War, starvation and plague come to mind, but they're not solutions rather they're mitigating factors. But recently, I did read that there is a force that has been shown to lower birth rates in an ethical and desirable manner: education. Specifically educating girls. And it's not just education in family planning and contraception (although these are very important, of course) but general education. The more educated a girl is, even in impoverished countries, the more options she envisions for her life, the more she sees that having children early and often will limit her opportunities greatly. If she delays or avoids having children or limits the number of children, she sees that she has more chances to live a more comfortable and productive life. The statistics in many African and other "third world" countries where education programs are successful are proving this theory with lowered birth rates.
The greatest challenge then is to increase education of young females in overpopulated and impoverished nations. But there's one thing that fights against such plans: religions. We've seen the Taliban and others forcibly deny girls education. We've seen Catholic priests in Africa promote the idea that condoms CAUSE AIDS. In the US, we have evangelicals not only pressuring state governments to restrict and deny access to abortion, but at the same time promote abstinence only education ensuring even more unwanted pregnancies.
If only education could mitigate religion... Oh, wait...
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Latest reply: Oct 27, 2011
We have reached normality!
Posted Oct 16, 2011
Anything you still cannot deal with is therefore your own problem.
Phew, two weeks. That was quicker than I expected but still felt like a very long time. But here we are again, back home. There remains a bit of insect extermination to take care of, but it's still nice to be back.
I've decided to change my name. (I hope it's visible, I noticed someone, possibly Mu Beta is nameless at the moment. I suspect it may be related to the suffix weirdness that sprung up with barelyscrewed.) Count Zero was a character in a Gibson novel. It's so 20th century. Baron Grim is an anagram of my name and more importantly, unique to me. (There are a couple of dead Count Zeroes haunting h2g2.) Anyway, now that we're in the Guide mark III it seems like as arbitrary time as any for a change.
Discuss this Journal entry [20]
Latest reply: Oct 16, 2011
I have a blog
Posted May 19, 2011
It's not much of one, but it's there. I got it almost by accident. I was trying to post to Notion Ink's official blog forum (the makers of my Adam tablet). To do so, they had it set to require logging in to make a post. So, I had to register with Wordpress. It didn't matter after all because they also had their forum set to require that the forum admin had to approve your first post (un-moderate it) to allow you to post, but they weren't bothering... Anyhoo...
So, I have a blog now.
I first just relocated all my h2g2 articles there to make sure they'd survive in case the "disposal" of h2g2 went poorly. I hope that turns out to be unnecessary, but I'd rather be prudent the rueful.
Anyhoo number two...
The other day I saw a beautiful and striking image on Nat Geo's website. It looks like a painting until your brain can comprehend what it actually is. Check it out: http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/camel-thorn-trees-namibia/
If you're still baffled, what your seeing is a huge sand dune far in the back ground lit by the morning sun while the foreground is still in the shade. The light patches are desert plants.
After I'd gaped at it for a few minutes (and saved a copy to use for my wallpaper) I couldn't help but think it looked almost but not quite like something I'd seen before.
Here's my new version.
http://wp.me/p1nQxh-p
So, that's where my blog is. I'm not sure what I'll do with it. Probably just randomly post random thoughts and curiosities at random intervals.
Here's the main link: http://barongrim.wordpress.com/
If I post anything new that I think merits attention, I'll mention it here in this thread.
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Latest reply: May 19, 2011
Let us do the time warp again
Posted Jan 24, 2011
Well, I just discovered something that has been making my browser go a bit wonky lately.
I have been getting a lot of warnings about untrusted websites for the last few days. It started when I tried to first log into my new employer*s website to try to enter my time sheet information. I was expecting to get some warnings while doing so so I thought little of it. But since then I have been getting similar warnings from other sites, including even this one. It is notifying me that I am accessing untrusted sites.
Well. I just got another similar pop up and took just a moment to read it. It was informing me that Amazon.com*s security certificate would not be valid until April 2010.
Something apparently reset my system clock to 3 January, 2005...
I wonder when and how that happened.
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Latest reply: Jan 24, 2011
DOH! It's official, I'm out of the loop. Feel free to call me a geezer.
Posted Nov 22, 2010
I just found out that Roger Waters was in Houston Saturday performing The Wall for its 30th anniversary and I had no idea. I didn't even know he was on tour. Pink Floyd didn't play Houston on the original Wall tour so I missed it then. I did catch Roger on his first solo tour for The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking. I was still in High School so it was a real thrill back then. But now, I just don't keep up with who's touring or even who is playing anymore. I'm at that stage where I really don't care who the hot new musicians are. Of course, I really never did like anything overtly popular or trendy. Heck, a real indicator of my geezertude is the fact that I've yet to own any sort of MP3 player, other than the one in my car that takes MP3's only on CD.
I would have enjoyed seeing Roger play the wall. If I'd known REALLY early I might have gotten a ticket. Oh, well. 
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Latest reply: Nov 22, 2010
Baron Grim
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