On Saturday morning, I was upstairs taking care of my morning hygienic needs when I heard the melody for Twinkle Twinkle Little Star plucked on the piano downstairs, followed by my wife clapping and congratulating. At first I thought she was teaching it to my son, but when I got downstairs I saw him alone at the piano, figuring out the melody all by himself.
All weekend long, he’s been playing the melody in different octaves over the keyboard. When he finishes he turns to look at us, and when we clap he puts his hands to his face and smiles — so proud and humble! I am certainly very proud of him.
I got Rush’s new album, Snakes and Arrows, a couple weeks ago. It’s been in my car’s rotation, waiting for me warm up to it.
Unfortunately, I don’t see any warming trends in the forecast. In fact, I’m greatly disappointed.
I’m pretty sure there is some good musicianship and songwriting on this album. The problem is that it’s too damn loud to pick any of it out. And I’m not talking about those kids and their loud rock music, I’m talking about the overall dynamics, or lack thereof. It’s weird – there are obviously places in the songs where the layers melt away and the band used softer dynamics to create tension and release, but in the final mix, everything just blends together at the same volume. Every instrument is buried in the mix. I can’t pick out the guitar solos or the vocals or the drums or the bass lines. It just all adds together to a mushy drone.
Signals (1982) took me a very long time to appreciate but has quietly become one of my absolute favorite Rush albums. With its heavy syth sound, Signals has a similar drone to it, but after a few listens I learned how the various parts worked together and found some very cool things happening. I keep waiting for that to happen with this latest album, but I don’t think it will.
I haven’t bought a new Rush album since Counterparts (1993), so maybe my ears just haven’t grown with their evolving sound. But I don’t think that’s it. I think it has more to do with how rock albums are mixed. I wrote about this earlier and linked to a very well-written article about how executives in the music industry are killing rock music by ordering that rock music be mixed as loud as possible. Unfortunately, that link seems to have gone stale. Ah wait, a bit of internet sleuthing has uncovered a couple of mirrors, try here or here for Rip Rowan’s enlightening article titled “Over the Limit.”
Anyway, it appears that this latest Rush release has succumbed to the ear-deadening waste of the over-mixed CD. It’s unfortunate because there are probably some good things going on that I’m missing.
Today is Day 365 of Consecutive Days in Which I Did Not Drink an Alcoholic Beverage. Which means that tonight is all about the twelver. No, not that one.
No it actually means that I can start making snide comments about others’ personal habits. Tsk, tsk. So sad. That Hasselhoff character sure does have a problem, doesn’t he?
Earlier I was hesitant to post about my son’s latest development since I didn’t want to pin too much hope on it. But after a few weeks, it is clear that he has decided it’s time to start talking.
This began with an increased interest in mimicry. After 4 1/2 years I guess those mirror neurons are finally starting to fire. While his consonants are not well developed, he is extremely good at following and repeating the cadence and syllables in both words and sentences. I know I’ve heard him say most of the consonants at some point in his life, so now it’s a matter of him discovering that he knows how to form them and where to put them in words.
A couple of weeks ago, he surprised me when he turned a page in a book, pointed at a picture of a whale, and said triumphantly, “Whale!”
Last weekend, for the first time, he responded to another kid on the playground. A little girl approached him and said “Hi,” to which he also said “Hi.” It may not seem huge, but for him to use a word in a socially relevant context is a major step.
He knows all of his colors and can count from 1 to 20, and he’s even counted into the twenties (though he seemed to think that twenty-ten makes far more sense than thirty; who am I to argue?). He’s pretty good at a number of animal names as well.
I’m no hypermiler, but over the last few months I have consistently beaten my car’s official EPA estimated highway fuel economy. So I thought I would share the techniques I have used to do so.
Getting good fuel economy is a matter of exercising common sense. Cars are heavy objects that require fuel to accelerate, and keeping this relationship in mind while driving is crucial to achieving good fuel economy.
Conserve momentum
An extremely general rule of thumb is to do your best to conserve momentum. Gasoline engines are very fuel efficient when driven at a constant speed. Gas consumption is highest during acceleration, so it is important to maximize the usage of momentum gained from fuel. Be aware of traffic conditions far ahead of you; when traffic is braking a quarter mile ahead, any acceleration is usually wasted fuel.
Easy on the throttle
The accelerator pedal is the most direct relationship you have with your car’s fuel system. When accelerating, use a light touch. Mashing the accelerator simply dumps fuel unnecessarily into the engine. Of course, there are times when rapid acceleration is required, such as merging onto a freeway or when taking evasive action, but for most daily driving, an easy and controlled acceleration is all that’s needed to get to speed.
Easy on the brake
Many drivers don’t realize that the throttle can be used very effectively to control both acceleration and deceleration. Any time the brake is applied, the engine is being robbed of the momentum it worked so hard to achieve. Even in stop-and-go traffic, I use the brake minimally. Stay focused on the traffic patterns far ahead and anticipate when the traffic begins to slow; once speed picks up again, don’t be too hasty on the gas pedal since traffic will likely slow right back down soon enough. You will notice that instead of quick successions of stop-and-go, that you ease into longer periods of acceleration, steady speed, and deceleration. These longer cycles are more fuel efficient, reduce mechanical wear and tear, and in my opinion are less stressful. A benefit to this style of driving is there will generally be more space between your car and the car in front, which reduces your chance of causing a wreck. You may feel that other drivers will simply attempt to fill this space, but in my experience this is not the case. While cars do sometimes merge in front, generally they won’t stay in front very long because they’re looking for other lanes that are moving faster.
Avoid unnecessary actions
While it can be sporting good fun, zipping in and out of traffic is certainly not conducive to good fuel economy (or other drivers’ good spirits). Avoid changing lanes when it’s not necessary, especially when you need to accelerate to do so. Plan ahead so that you don’t need to change lanes at the last moment to catch your exit.
Avoid complete stops
Starting from a stop is a big drag on fuel economy. Whenever possible, don’t stop. When approaching a red light, begin decelerating far in advance to conserve as much momentum as possible (For safety, when the light turns green, be wary of other traffic that may be running their red light as you approach the intersection). Starting from a slow roll is preferable than from a complete stop. If you have an automatic transmission, it is good to understand how the torque converter works. When starting from a stop, take your foot off the brake and allow the car to roll forward before applying the gas pedal. In this way, you gain initial forward momentum from the engine’s normal idle RPM. Using the engine’s idle to get the initial forward momentum reduces the number of RPM wasted in the torque converter, and less RPM means less fuel used.
Remove unnecessary weight
Weight plays a big role in fuel economy. The heavier the car, the more fuel is required to accelerate and maintain speed. Make a habit of cleaning unnecessary items from the interior of your car.
Obey speed limits
Air resistance (aerodynamic drag) increases exponentially with speed. On my bicycle, I’ve noticed a point at about 25 mph where accelerating becomes increasingly difficult because of air resistance, and a headwind makes things worse. A car’s engine faces the same aerodynamic drag, and at higher speeds, requires more fuel to overcome the increasing drag. Obeying speed limits is probably one of the most difficult ways to achieve greater fuel economy, as we’re all conditioned to go at least 5 mph over the limit. On the freeway, I always set my cruise control at 65 whenever it’s feasible to do so, and I stay out of the passing lanes.
Keep your car maintained
Clean oil reduces friction in your car’s engine. Proper air pressure in your tires reduces rolling resistance. A clean air filter lets the engine breathe easier. Maintenance items may not contribute significantly to fuel economy, but they will increase the life and resale value of the car, and they will keep the car running safely.
Commute during non-peak hours
If your employer is flexible, you may be able to arrange working hours that allow you to miss the peak of the rush hour. Less stop-and-go means better fuel economy. Tell your boss it’s for the environment!
Raising a child on the autism spectrum drives home an issue that I have struggled with since as long as I can remember. What place have I in this world? Ok, I know, it’s a vague and melodramatic question, one that begs to be reworded into terms more poetic (or thrown out the window), but however it’s said, its meaning is haunting.
Extended to my son, and given the extraordinary challenges ahead of him, what worldly place can I reasonably expect him to occupy? How am I to recognize and nurture the qualities that will allow him to excel? How does one resolve the ethical imbalance between a capitalist economic system versus the human beings who are unable to function within it? What is my ethical responsibility to society, having brought an autistic child into the world, and what is society’s ethical responsibility to me and my son?
Within all of this, I am tortured by my own failure to achieve the success I dreamed of as a child. The reality of my life is that of an indentured servant, a corporate slave. When I was a kid, I did not dream of mind-numbing debt, cubicles, fluorescent lights, and hours of soul-breaking commute. Somewhere along the line, I fucked up. Big time.
I find it beguiling that we have so completely bought into the myth that capitalism is freedom, that it should be democracy’s economic system. In our indoctrination into capitalism, we falsely equate the free market with political freedom.
I’m not going to argue with Adam Smith. In colonial times, capitalism worked great. It’s like any other system that works well in small or medium scales, but is disastrous at the large scale. With time and size, capitalism trends toward monopoly and consolidation of power, forces that undermine the free market. Over time, capitalism creates an aristocracy that continues to argue the merits of the free market to maintain power, even while the market’s freedom is eroded by vertical integration and corporate consolidation.
The simple fact is that democracy and capitalism are at odds: politically, people have freedom, but economically they are slaves to a living wage. This is especially true as capitalism matures. The working class is increasingly disenfranchised as capital accumulates in the elite wealthy class. Wealthy capitalists become less concerned with economic freedom and more concerned with perpetuating the system to sustain the hierarchy, and they infiltrate the political sphere to advance their agenda.
Entry-level sociology courses will tell you that every system of oppression operates on ingrained dogma that allows the oppressed class to accept subjugation. Equation of a free market with political freedom is part of capitalism’s dogma. Myths like the Horatio Algers story teach the oppressed working class that with enough hard work and tenacity, anyone can become wealthy and successful. Simply picking oneself up by one’s bootstraps will earn a place at the top, which works fine for those with bootstraps.
What the myths don’t tell us is the destructive nature of capitalism. While capitalism spurs advancement in technology, people’s access to these advances becomes increasingly problematic. Access to education, technology, and health care become increasingly controlled by bureaucratic corporations: secondary industries, such as medical HMOs, whose only purpose is to limit access to ostensibly scarce resources. In the process, these secondary industries become bloated giants, and while economic indicators such as GDP may grow with these secondary industries, they provide no real benefit to people and increase the cost of the primary industry they serve. The economy expands in glowing statistics yet people’s standard of living does not appreciate consummately.
Karl Marx already saw many of these problems, and many will point to the fall of the Soviet Union to discredit Marx’s arguments. However, there has been no instance of communism arising from mature capitalism as Marx originally predicted. Only with today’s technology are we seeing some of his predicted indicators: the massing of capital in a smaller elite class (have you seen the latest CEO salaries compared with workers?) and the ability of the working class to communicate all over the world instantaneously with the internet.
I believe we are coming to a point where we need to re-evaluate our existence. The American standard of living is atrociously unsustainable, and while we have historically prided ourselves as an example of industrialization for the world to follow, we are beginning to understand that we provide an extremely poor example of how to live. We fear the power of the “uncivilized horde” massing in so-called Third World countries, and rightly so: we live a lifestyle that is defined by subjugation of the poor. An economist would say that an economic system allocates scarce resources among humans with insatiable demand. Under capitalism, this structure is based on feudalism1.
A starting point for this re-evaluation is to lift the veils of the capitalist mythos. For example, we need to stop seeing the news media as liberal or conservative and see it rather as a tool wielded by the corporate aristocracy to maintain the capitalist oligarchy. After all, the subjugated working class is much easier to manipulate when pitted against itself.
The internet is allowing people to collaborate and share in a way that is unprecedented. The issues of piracy and copyright show us that the nature of ownership is changing. Ultimately, the exchange of ideas and art over the internet is showing us the inadequacy of the capitalist model to address the changing nature of ownership.
Within all of this, I realize that I must re-evaluate the definition of success for myself. The definition of success needs to be liberated from the ideals of the capitalist economic system. Wealth and property are inadequate measures of success. The definition of success must be measured instead by one’s contribution to the real advancement of civilization. The task at hand is the organization of human society such that real progress can be made in everyone’s standard of living, most especially that of the working class and the majority of the world’s population that lives in poverty.
This notion is extremely frightening to the wealthy elite since it implies a redistribution of wealth and power and subsequent decrease in their standard of living. But we need to understand that this standard of living is not a standard at all, that it is in fact predatory2 upon the welfare of the majority of the world’s population. The definition needs to change, and accordingly our values must change. I believe we have the technology and resources to provide for the welfare of the entire human race, and when we commit ourselves to this goal, the fears of the wealthy elite become unfounded.
In this context, I find optimism for my and my son’s future. Within capitalism, we are lost. But by redefining success and lifting the veils of capitalist dogma, we become points of light within human enterprise.
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1 I lifted the concept of capitalism as a mature form of feudalism from Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy. Robinson argues that economic systems borrow concepts from their predecessors to maintain social stability. Under feudalism, property is owned by a noble elite and worked by a class of serfs with no ownership. Capitalism shifts the concept from property to capital; an elite class controls capital while a disenfranchised working class has no ownership.
2 Once again, I owe the concept of a predatory socio-economic system to Kim Stanley Robinson. Robinson argues that industrialized countries maintain power by exploiting resources (raw materials and labor) from Third World countries while saddling them with unmanageable debt. Thus the high standard of living enjoyed by industrialized nations depresses the standard of living of developing nations.
Jon Stewart’s wit is razor-sharp, and with it he cuts big political issues down to easily digestible tidbits, though said tidbits may still be difficult to swallow. One of the reasons why I like him so much is that while it takes me many effluent words and paragraphs to get to a point, he is able to make his point with conciseness and humor.
