Back Among the Living

Now that all the photos from our vacation are finally on Flickr, I have been working my way back into my normal internet routine. Between the asymmetry of our cable connection, the unstableness of the Flickr Uploadr application, and the general flakiness of Windows XP, the job took much longer than it should have, but in any case it is done. So in the process of catching up, a couple things caught my eye.

The first is an article recommending that you stock up on food now as higher prices are imminent. Anyone that has been to a grocery store in the last couple months knows that prices are steadily ticking upwards, and dramatically so for certain items such as eggs. What most people do not understand is that the big, evil corporations that supply us with much of our food, have been taking most of the hit for recent increases in everything from diesel fuel to feed corn. This simply cannot continue indefinitely, meaning there is a good chance that we ain't seen nothin' yet. Of course, anyone over the age of 30 knows that a well-stocked pantry is just plain good sense. The shelf life of canned and dry goods is essentially infinite if kept away from moisture and out of direct sunlight (in other words, in a pantry), so it isn't as if you will be throwing away what you don't use immediately. But like much good sense, stocking a pantry seems to have gone the way of baking ones own bread, with the pantry in the average home today being a bad joke. I must confess that includes us as well. Ours has become home to mostly inedible stuff that we don't know what else to do with as we adapt to smaller living quarters. We will likely change that and sooner rather than later.

The second is a review by Freeman Dyson on two books concerning (you knew this was coming, right?) global warming or global climate change or whatever label it has this week. He doesn't say it, but what I took away from this article is something that Jerry Pournelle has been harping on for years: when faced with two mutually exclusive courses of action, it is better to spend money reducing uncertainty rather than arbitrarily choosing a course of action only to find out that you chose poorly after it is too late to change course, or changing course involves vast expenditures. But the "consensus" seems to rule the day, so you may want to consider moving to a warmer climate just in case the current lack of solar activity becomes a full-blown solar minimum. We are still within historical precedent and will be for about another nine months or so. But I would point out that I had a paper route during the last comparable solar minimum and walking in -40 degree temps delivering newspapers is no picnic. Keep in mind that in a contest between fire and ice, fire is more conducive to human welfare.

Well, I need to get busy on the pile on my desk.