Haute Cuisine: The Guinea Pig

Americans have really weird eating habits. Just ask the rest of the world. They will tell you. What, no grasshoppers on the menu? Horse? Do you have horse? No horse? What kind of place are you running here? I guess that means dog is out of the question, then, huh?

The greater portion of the world has to find protein, in any of its variety of forms. And carbohydrates, those are important, too. Both can be a challenge to find in large and easily domesticated forms around the world.



In smaller forms, though, protein and carbohydrates are pretty accessible, if, you are raised in a culture that is not squeamish about eating creatures that are small and have more than four legs, or, the gag reflex can be surpressed, or, the anthropomorphised cuteness factor can be overcome. Americans, generally, do not fall into any of these categories.

In a recent Salon post, the author quoted a staggering figure: that Peruvians eat 65 million guinea pigs last year. I cannot imagine 65 million guinea pigs, let alone eating 65 million guinea pigs. Supposedly, they taste like chicken, of course.

Americans eat Guinea fowl, hens, so why not pigs?

Ubuntu: Not Done in the Middle

I like Ubuntu. A few months ago, I downloaded a version, made a bootable CD. I have since used my bootable ubuntu to solve a few system issues and remove virus/malware infections. The interface is slick and fast, and it mounted both my USB drive and local hard drive without any issues.

However, I have been a low-level Unix geek for 17 years. Sun Solaris was my first Unix version, followed by IBM's AIX, and a few flavors of Linux. Working on Linux platforms is not my strong suit but I can get around.

Not to disparage my fellow humans but 99.9% of the world's population really have no business dealing with Linux in any flavor. It is okay to learn and mess around and I am not trying to discourage anyone from picking up a Linux version. However, for what I do, GIS/RS, even Unix is being replaced by Windows applications.

Linux is so alien to many, requiring people to alter the paradigm with which they interact with computers. And finding and loading software that compares with Windows-based computers can be extremely challenging and frustrating.

Be careful when buying your next computer. Wal-mart once sold laptops with Ubuntu Linux installed, and the unsuspecting public were buying them and returning them - what the hell software is on my computer? was the reaction. Though the boxes were clearly marked. Dell is marketing laptops and desktops with some form of Linux pre-installed. Just be careful and read the fine print, which these days means read everything.

All Shook Up: Tonga

Lots of seismic activity in the South Pacific. First, we have a volcano erupting. Later, by a few hours, a 7.7 earthquake occurs with an epicenter located at the red dot, in the graphic to the right.

If you want to know where Tonga is located, there is a tiny inset globe illustrating the location of Australia, and the little drop of blood to the east of Australia is Tonga.

The video is funny. Listen to the woman narrating. She says, according to the scientists she interviewed, that there would be no damage to the environment from the eruption. Tell that to all the fish that got blown to smithereens.



Another interesting thing is that the geologists aren't really sure if the two events, the volcano and the earthquake are related. Are you kidding me? The article says the two events are about 200km apart. That's about 160 miles. That is not that far. These events cannot be coincidental. I'm not a geologist, but a geographer - and people confuse these two occupations all the time - but I do have some knowledge of the environment and I have a hard time believing that these two seismic events aren't somehow connected.

Yike! in Tulsa

Ok, this should make us all a little nervous. This little guy to the right hitchhiked his way into the United States, probably on some bananas.

He, or probably she, actually, as the female gender of spiders tend to be the larger of the two, is the deadliest spider on the planet, according to the article. The Brazilian Wandering Spider. Wandering around looking for something to kill, most likely. 25 minutes is all you get in order to administer the antivenom, afterwards you get a chance to meet all of your ancestors.

Why do they end up in the U.S.? Because we like year-round produce. During the winter months when our agricultural industries are in hiatus due to cold weather, we have to go abroad for the tomatoes and lettuce we want on our Big&Tasty burger, or to add a healthy fruit to our diet. And bananas, as well as a few other fruits, are not indigenous to the United States. And if you are thinking about how dangerous it might be to shop your Walmart, consider the worker who put his life on the life to harvest your banana. Those guys get bit by all sorts of creepy-crawlies all the time.

I've heard of spiders hitching rides an produce from overseas. Be careful when picking out your produce, and be careful when stocking produce as the stocker is probably more likely to get bit than a customer.

Historical Tornadoes

The map to the right comes to us from Texas Tech, the Center for Geospatial Technology.

An interesting map, really. Consider "Tornado Alley." Where do you think Tornado Alley falls? Now, look at this map, and tell me where, according the tornado tracks, Tornado Alley can be found.

The perceptual region, Tornado Alley, is not particularly evident. In fact, I might argue that, based on this map, Tornado Alley is a myth.

Before I actually go there, though, a few considerations come to mind. First, the colors of the tornado tracks are problematic. Our eyes are very sensitive to the red, more so than the yellow, giving the map an appearance that mid-part of our nation is covered violent tornados. In fact, the map does seem to indicate a high degree of violent tornadoes. The Great Plains seems to have not only many violent tornadoes but also a great number of weak tornadoes.

Some spatial queries might help highlight Tornado Alley. Knowing the concentration of tornadoes per some unit of area would be interesting to know. Knowing the ration of weak vs. violent tornadoes per unit of area would also be interesting to know, as well.

The Right Bailout

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20081204/NEWS01/812040398/1008

The book I am recommending to people is, The Post-American World, by Fareed Zakaria. Non-technical, meant for the everyday Joe to read, the book is worth the read. Fareed sets forth in very clear terms what we, as Americans, will have to face as more and more countries close the gap between themselves and the United States, and the developed world, in general.

Let's get right to the chase. What industry in the United States is arguably the most important industry in the United States? I'll give you a minute . . . . .

Automobile? . . . nope.  Computers?  . . . nope.  Software? . . . . .  nope.  Uhm, what about finance, with all the banks and mortgage companies it must be the financial sector, right? . . . . nope.

According to one of the later chapters in Fareed's book, he argues, and I have to say my bias agrees with him, that EDUCATION, and specifically HIGHER EDUCATION is the most important industry in the United States.

Higher Ed? How can that be?

Ok, let's break it down. Where do our business leaders come from? How do they get their education? Accountants? Economists? Software programmers? Engineers? Scientists?

Most of our business leaders all receive their training within the United States, at U.S. universities. Some may travel abroad to receive more robust training - study abroad is a great experience and I recommend it for everyone - but, by-in-large our universities churn out the leaders of the largest free market in the world.

And not only that, we also train and churn out leaders for the rest of the world, too. Thousands of students come to the United States every year to enroll in school and receive their education. They may already have received one degree already in their home country, in fact. That degree, while of value, pales against a degree from a U.S. institution of higher learning. Foreign students study in the United States, then take that education and put it to use here in the U.S., or they may relocate to another country to study, or they may put their education to use when they return to their home country.

To return to the question, the question was not which industry has the largest market share, or has the greatest income, the question was, 'what industry is the most important?'

Now, that is not to say that some intrepid, entrepreneurial people might strike out on their own and develop something, like Google, or Facebook, or Microsoft. In most cases, these groundbreakers where in school when they developed their software. Smart people tend to hang out at universities and seek out other smart people.

What is happening now, because of the financial state of the United States, is the undermining of our educational system. Specifically, I am focusing on the budget cuts faced now by all higher education institutions in Kentucky. Other states are also faced with tough decisions.

An analogy I thought of likens the budget cuts of higher education to removing the support pilings under a very tall building. You can only remove so many before the building looses stability and cracks begin to appear. Remove more, the foundation fails, and the building collapses.

Higher Education is fundamental to economic growth, economic well-being, and social well-being for the United States. Cutting higher ed funding weakens us as a country as we lose a little ground on our competitors. Rather than leading, we may have to follow. We may lose our privilege as a country, our global respect, and our status as the world's leading economic force. Of course, that may happen, anyway, with the growth of China.

I like what the Western Kentucky University's President Gary Ransdell was quoted as saying the Louisville-Courier Journal on Wednesday (the link is above): "You cannot continue to cut your budget and return money to the state ... and still grow."

The Council on Post-Secondary Education (CPE) for Kentucky has an initiative for univerities to grow their student body populations. Murray State must add 2,000 students by 2012 to comply with the initiative. Add, serve, and educate 2,000 additional students over the next 3 years, on top of giving back $2 million dollars in 2007-2008. MSU is supposed to give back about 4% of its budget, or about $2 million dollars, in 2008-2009. Salaries will be frozen, hiring for some positions will be suspended, and programs may be suspended or eliminated. The Murray State budget will be more like the budget available in 2001, nearly eight years ago.

I argue that Higher Education is a better place to invest, a better place to put "bailout" dollars. The effect would be huge, albeit not very immediate. After all, it takes 3-5 years to for someone to graduate college. The money could be used to improve and repair current infrastructure, fund student loans and scholarships, fully fund programs, fund research, and, of course, educate people.

The Wrong Bailout

First, we had the Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac bailout. With 5$ trillion dollars in assets to lose, they were too big to allow to fail.

Then, we were faced with a slew of banks needing bailouts: Washington Mutual, IndyMac, First National Bank of Reno, Nevada, to name a few. Check out this site for a complete list. Along with those, we have the mortgage company crisis. This is $700 billion dollar blank check that Henry Paulson was given.

Now, the Big Three auto makers have entered the fray. Ford, GM, and Chrysler want money. GM says they need $4 billion dollars right now, before the year ends.

The CEOs look and sound like drug addicts. They claim they will reform themselves, but they need a fix right now. They claim they will fail if we don't help them. They claim that a bankrupt U.S. auto industry will weaken us militarily and will undermine our national security (Chrysler CEO Robert Nardelli). They try to bargain, then use fear-mongering to try to keep from losing their gravy train, or their addiction to their own largess.

Would auto bankruptcy really be a bad thing? Sure, there would be a stigma, perhaps, attached to the auto maker(s) that got hit by bankruptcy. If, on the other side of darkness, a good product that people could be proud of was produced, that might lessen or eliminate the stigma. But stigma is not a good reason not to do something . . . to me, anyway.

Here are some thoughts about a potential bankruptcy plan:

1. Bankruptcy does not mean the doors on the plants are closed and locked forever, probably not at all.
2. Done the right way, bankruptcy could keep people in their jobs (at least some) while the company was reorganized.
3. Labor contracts would be nullified, allowing more reasonable labor contracts to be created. Sure, getting paid 90% of your salary should you be laid-off sounds great, but is that really feasible? This would help them get their costs under control, for sure.
4. Bankruptcy would force a restructuring of the Board of Directors. These are the real felons. They are the ones that control the flow of funds and stimy innovation. Remove them and in their places put in people who know how to innovate.
5. Bankruptcy may help create a new Ford, GM, or Chrysler that is lean, mean, and able to compete in the global marketplace.
6. The automakers need to realize that this is not the 1950's. Thought processes must change or adapt to meet the needs of the 21st century. To me, it seems like the automakers would rather spend millions lobbying Congress to impede progress, than be the forerunners of progress. I say this specifically to comments regarding the cost associated with fuel efficiency and alternative fuels (that are not corn-based). There is a market for such cars.
7. GM was bailed out in 1979. Why did they not learn their lesson then. Why are they repeating the same mistakes 30 years later?
8. If there is money available, why not give $1, $2, $4 billion dollars to finance those companies like Tesla Motorcars to get them up to production levels?
9. Bankruptcy might finally force the car maker culture to wake up and smell the coffee. The fact that this industry is in the shape it is in is humiliating and embarassing. The U.S. was once the world leader in automobiles, in innovation, technology, design. Now, all we have proven is how sedentary and entrenched we have become, lazy and boring.

In my mind, bailing out GM, Ford, and Chrysler is the wrong bailout.

So, if that is the wrong bailout, what is the proper bailout? ...