The Goose - good for the gander, too.

I'm into learning stuff. One big group of stuff I like to learn about is personal leadership/productivity/improvement, and there's no shortage of books out there feed that need. So many, in fact, that there's no way I can read them all, or even a small fraction of them. Which is why The Goose is so fantastic.

They read books, summarize them, extract key nuggets (Golden Eggs) and send you an email every Tuesday with the information nicely written up. Since a lot of books contain no more than one or two original, useful ideas (if that), this saves a whole lot of time.

Check them out. You'll be glad you did.

 

 

Burning Picassos

I ran across this article the other day with a challenging title.

http://scitizen.com/stories/future-energies/2009/08/Burning-Picassos-for-Heat/

The author equates using nuclear energy to power tar sands extraction to burning fine art for heat. Stupid oil companies, who would ever do something like that?

People who are very cold in an art museum.

If you have a need for one thing and an abundance of another, who wouldn't trade the excess to meet the need? That is exactly where we find ourselves in the energy world. We need transportation fuel (which currently equals oil), and we have (or can have) plenty of electricity from nuclear plants. So the logical choice is to trade the nuclear power for the oil, no matter what the efficiency losses are.

Liquid hydrocarbons (gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, etc.) are the most convenient and energy-dense fuels that we have available today. It's easy to talk about changing to electric cars, but a lot harder to do. As long as we value the convenience and low cost of our liquid-powered cars more than pure energy efficiency (and who really thinks about that first thing in the morning?), the oil companies will be happy to make the trade-off of Picassos for heat.

The price we pay

Everything has a price, or more accurately, a cost. Do you ever think about that? I rarely do, and it often gets me into trouble, particularly when the costs come at different times, so one thing seems way cheaper than another.

Easy example: credit cards.
Buy now, pay later. The cost of the item hasn't changed from cash, it's just shifted in time plus there's the very real potential additional cost (interest, late charges, etc.) and the hidden cost of processing.

Harder example: fast food.
Eat now, get fat later. A little less clear here. I can pay now in money (fast food is cheap, alternatives being more expensive), inconvenience (my fridge doesn't have a drive-through) and sacrifice (fast food is yummy).

Hardest example: time.
It's running out. It doesn't matter what you're buying or eating, time is ticking away at about 60 seconds per minute, and the end is nearer now than it's ever been. So what choice will I make now? Blog, play with kids, read, play Wesnoth, watch a movie, call a friend? Some of those things are easy. Some take effort. So writing a thoughtful blog post seems more expensive than watching TV. But...

The cost is not only the effort involved. It is also the loss of being able to do anything else with that time...ever. In economics, that's sometimes called an opportunity cost. And while my choice to watch TV right now isn't a big deal, making that choice again and again means that I've given up many hours of learning, thinking, praying, serving, loving, and living. That can get really expensive.

I am by nature a lazy man. But when I think about the full price I pay...maybe I will get off the couch.

Share the love/hate

One of my ongoing challenges is directing my attention toward positive things. Sometimes the temptation away from the positive is toward the negative, but more often, it's toward the neutral. And too much time (how is that defined, I wonder?) in neutral is just as negative.

I've been a gamer since my family first got a computer in 1985 and my dad bought me Boulderdash. Since then, a lot of games have come and gone, most notably everything Blizzard made in the '90s. All great fun, and initially fully neutral on the positive/negative scale for use of my time. But as you might have guessed, too much time has tipped that often into negative territory.

So in the last several years, I've been trying to reduce my gaming habit, mostly by not paying money for games (usually). This kind of works, since free games are rarely on par with commercial titles. However, there are some. Here are a couple of the games I love to hate and hate to love. Check them out...if you dare.


The Battle for Wesnoth
Turn-based strategy game with a fantasy (knights and wizards and trolls) theme. Simple, engaging interface, well written scenarios, balanced, huge. The best freeware game I've found.

The DROD Family
Although not technically completely free, there are enough demo levels and classic versions to make it seem that way. DROD stands for Deadly Rooms of Death, which summarizes things pretty well. In a turn-based tile puzzle mode, your job is to clear each room (there are lots) of nasties using a Really Big Sword. Humor, variety, and challenge make for a game that's hard to walk away from. I've even bought an installment, and that says a lot from me.

If there's anything else that should be on this very short list, please don't tell me. :)