So I read this article a while back about how we need to vastly improve our network of energy distribution. Naturally, I object. I think it's a wonderful idea, but there is another solution that isn't even being talked about. Better yet, you can combine them both...
Here's my plan. Currently about 7% of the energy produced at a power plant is lost in the grid. Not too bad actually, but 7% is enough to satisfy 21 million people in the US. That's 7 times the population of Chicago proper...
The problem is this. With traditional sources of energy such as gas and coal plants you need to build the generation stations big enough to handle peak demand. Peak demand is something like the hottest day in summer when everyone is running their AC. Low points are 2 AM in the morning when no one is using electricity. Ideally you would have medium sized generators that ran all the time, but because of peak demand the power companies have to bring plants online occasionally to fill demand. They're called peak plants. In fact I've seen some of them. ComEd actually has jet engines it can turn on to spin turbines and meet peak demand. They're cool... but that can't be cheap. Electrical demand has to be matched exactly. There is no fudge margin. Excess gets wasted and if enough isn't produced then things start to fail.
In comes renewables. They aren't very reliable in terms of output. If the wind slows down around a wind turbine farm so does energy production... by a factor of the difference of the cubes, so quickly (an 8 knot wind produces half the power of an 11 knot wind). If a cloud passes over a solar array it produces less energy. Thus, the aforementioned article calls for a newer smarter grid to deal with these things. I agree, it's a good idea to start work on this. But is that the whole solution?
What if most homes (or at least newly constructed homes) had a bank of batteries tied to their own renewable energy generators plus a plug in hybrid car? The car is in this case is essentially just more battery storage potential. Basically, if most homes had a decent battery storage capacity they could store the excess energy from power plants during the night when none is being used. Plus, with the renewables they would offset the peak demand. Think about it. When is peak demand? Midday when it's hottest and the sun is the brightest. So peak is reduced by the usage of renewables, and trough point demand is raised because everyone is charging their cars and banks of batteries. The demand for electricity is now much more flat.
Power plants could becomes smaller, run more consistently, and be more efficient. Then again, no one wants to pay for anything up front. We seem to be more content with paying higher costs indefinately than paying more initially.
20 January 2009
16 January 2009
Lots of Art
Just posted a new print on Etsy. It's of the EL tracks in the Loop.
Also, I've been taking a few process/documentary style photos lately, so the other day I took photos of Evan brewing beer and Justin (who's website is linked at the top right also) doing some screen prints. It's a bit more involved than I imagined, and he's way more of a perfectionist than me. You can tell my photos are handmade. There are imperfections everywhere. Film leaders just look too sweet to crop. But Justin will toss a print at the slightest sign of a blemish. Fascinating stuff.
Also, I've been taking a few process/documentary style photos lately, so the other day I took photos of Evan brewing beer and Justin (who's website is linked at the top right also) doing some screen prints. It's a bit more involved than I imagined, and he's way more of a perfectionist than me. You can tell my photos are handmade. There are imperfections everywhere. Film leaders just look too sweet to crop. But Justin will toss a print at the slightest sign of a blemish. Fascinating stuff.
The IAT, Racism, and Obama
The IAT is a psychological test that measures your implicit attitudes on a variety of subjects. The beauty of the test is its near perfect external validity. Many psychological experiments, and subsequently findings, have trouble translating to the real world. The IAT, in this case, is used to measure your implicit attitudes towards racism. You can take it here. Once, you get to that site you can take a multitude of IAT tests, but if you scroll down go the second to last one is entitled Race IAT. Take that one.
As an aside, in my final psych. lab in undergrad. we took this test after taking an explicit test about race. I scored the highest on the explicit test (by far) meaning that according to my outward beliefs I was quite racist. I think the other rich white kids were just lying about how they really felt. I was however vindicated by the IAT. I got the least biased score of anyone in the class.
There is an example given in Malcolm Gladwell's book, Blink, of a student that takes the IAT every day. And every day the result comes back that he has a preference for white people over black people. Then one day the result comes back that he has no preference. For one day his implicit racism subsides, but thereafter his IAT scores go back to showing a preference for white people. So what happened that one day that changed his actual attitudes? He watched a speech from MLK. The theory goes that when you see someone or something that you may have misgivings about doing something good or being associated with something you consider positive repeatedly it changes your implicit attitudes towards them... no real shocker there.
When Obama got elected I was excited because I thought it would improve race relations, and perhaps more importantly, help black people feel empowered. But how do you measure that? Wheres the proof for that theory? The Implicit Attitudes Test (IAT). I'd love to see those IAT scores charted for a few years before, during, and after this presidency. $20 and my right arm says there's a moderate to large sized statistically significant effect.
For extra credit: will this change the opinion of racist conservative rednecks? I think so. They'll still hate him for being black and for being a "liberal", but they'll also watch him (except for the most extreme cases) acting as the president. And over time the two will become synonymous with one another in their minds.
As an aside, in my final psych. lab in undergrad. we took this test after taking an explicit test about race. I scored the highest on the explicit test (by far) meaning that according to my outward beliefs I was quite racist. I think the other rich white kids were just lying about how they really felt. I was however vindicated by the IAT. I got the least biased score of anyone in the class.
There is an example given in Malcolm Gladwell's book, Blink, of a student that takes the IAT every day. And every day the result comes back that he has a preference for white people over black people. Then one day the result comes back that he has no preference. For one day his implicit racism subsides, but thereafter his IAT scores go back to showing a preference for white people. So what happened that one day that changed his actual attitudes? He watched a speech from MLK. The theory goes that when you see someone or something that you may have misgivings about doing something good or being associated with something you consider positive repeatedly it changes your implicit attitudes towards them... no real shocker there.
When Obama got elected I was excited because I thought it would improve race relations, and perhaps more importantly, help black people feel empowered. But how do you measure that? Wheres the proof for that theory? The Implicit Attitudes Test (IAT). I'd love to see those IAT scores charted for a few years before, during, and after this presidency. $20 and my right arm says there's a moderate to large sized statistically significant effect.
For extra credit: will this change the opinion of racist conservative rednecks? I think so. They'll still hate him for being black and for being a "liberal", but they'll also watch him (except for the most extreme cases) acting as the president. And over time the two will become synonymous with one another in their minds.
13 January 2009
Picturequote
"The Roots of Violence:
Wealth without work,
Pleasure without conscience,
Knowledge without character,
Commerce without morality,
Science without humanity,
Worship without sacrifice,
Politics without principles." - Ghandi
I was looking back at some of my blog posts and saw that I intended to quit my job about 2 months ago. I had totally forgotten. The economy hadn't quite melted yet, and I was about a month away from another "spectacular" event in my life. Regardless, it strikes me as interesting that my life changes so much. Is this normal? I hesitate to say that I'm unique in this respect. People often think they're more special and unique than they really are, but in this case I'm willing to bet I'm a bit of an outlier. And I' not talking about changing jobs... I'll go into further detail in a few years.
This is my dad's work truck parked at a redi-mix plant in Chicago at 64th and State.
Wealth without work,
Pleasure without conscience,
Knowledge without character,
Commerce without morality,
Science without humanity,
Worship without sacrifice,
Politics without principles." - Ghandi
I was looking back at some of my blog posts and saw that I intended to quit my job about 2 months ago. I had totally forgotten. The economy hadn't quite melted yet, and I was about a month away from another "spectacular" event in my life. Regardless, it strikes me as interesting that my life changes so much. Is this normal? I hesitate to say that I'm unique in this respect. People often think they're more special and unique than they really are, but in this case I'm willing to bet I'm a bit of an outlier. And I' not talking about changing jobs... I'll go into further detail in a few years.
This is my dad's work truck parked at a redi-mix plant in Chicago at 64th and State.
Food Experiment Day 1
A lot of my data is incomplete due to a lack of packaging for certain products, free food, and the grocery store not stocking soybeans... the third largest cash crop in the US (behind marijuana and corn respectively).
Breakfast: 410 calories, $0.86
1.5 C skim milk - $0.28
2 C cereal (honey nut cheerios and honey bunches of oats) - $0.47
1 T ground flax seed - $0.11
Lunch: 560 calories, free (about $1)
2 pieces of wheat bread - $0.50
some celery and 3 T peanut butter - $0.50
strawberry jelly, hummus, salsa 1 T each - $?
Late Lunch: 550 calories, $2.77
2 potatoes - $0.50
1 large onion - $0.85
1 T olive oil - $0.21
1 clove garlic, 1/2 jalapeno pepper - $0.10
1 PBR beer - $0.53
1 granny smith apple - $0.58
Dinner: 600 calories (maybe?), free + $0.53
1 cup white rice
chicken, carrots, snow peas, and bamboo stir fry
1 PBR beer - $0.53
Late Dinner: 330 calories, $0.67
1.25 C skim milk - $0.23
1.5 C cereal - $0.35
1 T ground flax seed - $0.11
Total: 2450 calories, $4.80 plus 2 free meals contributing about 1000 calories to my diet
First, this seems a little high. Add in the 2% food tax and my bill today was $5 (tax is included on alcohol as it's expensive). Cheap, sure but I can do better. I need to buy onions in bulk and if I were really serious I'd cut back on the beer. Other than that the rest was as expected: fresh fruits and vegetables are expensive and not calorie dense and starchy carbohydrates are cheap.
It's also worth noting that its actually quite hard to get enough calories if you aren't eating processed food. If I were to omit the oil and beer from my diet I would be on track to lose about a pound a week (450 calories a day, 3150 a week, 3500 calories in a pound of fat). Replacing those calories is the equivalent of 4 potatoes (110 calories each). I guess cereal counts as processed too... hm. Getting enough calories requires that you eat a bit on the unhealthy side. An egg is about 70 calories, but I always throw out the yolk... which leaves you with 17 calories of egg white (a 75% reduction). Or skim milk, just as expensive as whole milk but 60% fewer calories (skim 90, whole 150 per cup)
Then there's the problem of free food... I'm not sure how to deal with it yet.
Breakfast: 410 calories, $0.86
1.5 C skim milk - $0.28
2 C cereal (honey nut cheerios and honey bunches of oats) - $0.47
1 T ground flax seed - $0.11
Lunch: 560 calories, free (about $1)
2 pieces of wheat bread - $0.50
some celery and 3 T peanut butter - $0.50
strawberry jelly, hummus, salsa 1 T each - $?
Late Lunch: 550 calories, $2.77
2 potatoes - $0.50
1 large onion - $0.85
1 T olive oil - $0.21
1 clove garlic, 1/2 jalapeno pepper - $0.10
1 PBR beer - $0.53
1 granny smith apple - $0.58
Dinner: 600 calories (maybe?), free + $0.53
1 cup white rice
chicken, carrots, snow peas, and bamboo stir fry
1 PBR beer - $0.53
Late Dinner: 330 calories, $0.67
1.25 C skim milk - $0.23
1.5 C cereal - $0.35
1 T ground flax seed - $0.11
Total: 2450 calories, $4.80 plus 2 free meals contributing about 1000 calories to my diet
First, this seems a little high. Add in the 2% food tax and my bill today was $5 (tax is included on alcohol as it's expensive). Cheap, sure but I can do better. I need to buy onions in bulk and if I were really serious I'd cut back on the beer. Other than that the rest was as expected: fresh fruits and vegetables are expensive and not calorie dense and starchy carbohydrates are cheap.
It's also worth noting that its actually quite hard to get enough calories if you aren't eating processed food. If I were to omit the oil and beer from my diet I would be on track to lose about a pound a week (450 calories a day, 3150 a week, 3500 calories in a pound of fat). Replacing those calories is the equivalent of 4 potatoes (110 calories each). I guess cereal counts as processed too... hm. Getting enough calories requires that you eat a bit on the unhealthy side. An egg is about 70 calories, but I always throw out the yolk... which leaves you with 17 calories of egg white (a 75% reduction). Or skim milk, just as expensive as whole milk but 60% fewer calories (skim 90, whole 150 per cup)
Then there's the problem of free food... I'm not sure how to deal with it yet.
12 January 2009
20x200
This is the coolest art website I've ever seen. Plus I'm a sucker for formulas.
(limited editions x low prices) + the internet = art for everyone
(limited editions x low prices) + the internet = art for everyone
I Love Predictions
Freakonomics is having a long sighted contest for economic or really the best unforeseen event of 2009. You can enter here.
That being said, I write down predictions/business ideas (that are inevitable) from time to time. It's a pseudo hobby of mine and I'd like to think I'm good at it. One of my big ones for the past couple years now has been that some day all media will be licensed to users and downloaded cheaply via the internet. By media I mean books, music, movies, etc. Anything that has a transaction cost that approaches zero will be salable via this method. Why is this inevitable? Currently stores like Best Buy and Borders exist... which means they have to pay employees to stock a physical product, rent a store, pay for electricity, get books/cds from a distributor, who gets them from a manufacturer, etc. By downloading these things via the internet you get rid of over 90% of that. Apple's iTunes is screwed up because they charge $1 a song. Yea, it should be like 5 or 10 cents and the price should fluctuate with demand... will someone please hire me to think up ideas? I have note books full of them.
Here's another; okay, everyone needs food right? And less and less people can or have the time to cook... yet the current food that fits this bill is crazy unhealthy and we all know it. Speaking of which, McDonalds is posting some of its biggest gains they've ever experienced. No money? It's cheap and calorie laden. So why not combine the cheapness and ubiquity of McDonalds with the health that should be inherent to inexpensive food. Cheap tasty food doesn't need to be unhealthy. Now the twist, serve in measured portions and allow your customers to sign up in your store or online for a preferred card type system (much like your grocery store) that would allow them to see what they've eaten in terms of calories, protein, carbs, etc. (if anyone steals this idea, which BTW I'm fine with, please credit me or hire me as a consultant or something). This also allows the business to gather a ton of data on its customers. Parents could also give their kids meal cards that could specify dietary restrictions, allow the kids to eat a good meal in the absence of their parents, and allow the parents to check up on their childrens' diets. The prices of food should also fluctuate with market prices, and the menus should be diverse and constantly changing. So an electronic menu would be necessary. Also, these restaurants should be low frill affairs. They should also start in cities and there will need to be a lot of them initially to achieve the kind of economies of scale that will make the food affordable. O, and it needs to be deliverable. The mission statement of this business should follow along the lines of... improve the health of your customers while providing transparency of dietary information at an extremely low price (meal + snack for between meals for about $2-4, yes it's possible).
Side note: the reason this will work is because kitchens are expensive to build, grocery stores are inefficient (it's a middle man), healthy restaurants are unnecessarily expensive, peoples time is increasingly limited and valuable, cooking for yourself is inefficient, fast food is generally unhealthy, and fewer and fewer people can cook or ever do so at home.
And yes, all my ideas eliminate jobs. I'm evil. Then again wouldn't it suck if we still had blacksmiths and ice delivery men? There's plenty of work to be done in this world. Don't cling to menial tasks that can be done better by technology.
That being said, I write down predictions/business ideas (that are inevitable) from time to time. It's a pseudo hobby of mine and I'd like to think I'm good at it. One of my big ones for the past couple years now has been that some day all media will be licensed to users and downloaded cheaply via the internet. By media I mean books, music, movies, etc. Anything that has a transaction cost that approaches zero will be salable via this method. Why is this inevitable? Currently stores like Best Buy and Borders exist... which means they have to pay employees to stock a physical product, rent a store, pay for electricity, get books/cds from a distributor, who gets them from a manufacturer, etc. By downloading these things via the internet you get rid of over 90% of that. Apple's iTunes is screwed up because they charge $1 a song. Yea, it should be like 5 or 10 cents and the price should fluctuate with demand... will someone please hire me to think up ideas? I have note books full of them.
Here's another; okay, everyone needs food right? And less and less people can or have the time to cook... yet the current food that fits this bill is crazy unhealthy and we all know it. Speaking of which, McDonalds is posting some of its biggest gains they've ever experienced. No money? It's cheap and calorie laden. So why not combine the cheapness and ubiquity of McDonalds with the health that should be inherent to inexpensive food. Cheap tasty food doesn't need to be unhealthy. Now the twist, serve in measured portions and allow your customers to sign up in your store or online for a preferred card type system (much like your grocery store) that would allow them to see what they've eaten in terms of calories, protein, carbs, etc. (if anyone steals this idea, which BTW I'm fine with, please credit me or hire me as a consultant or something). This also allows the business to gather a ton of data on its customers. Parents could also give their kids meal cards that could specify dietary restrictions, allow the kids to eat a good meal in the absence of their parents, and allow the parents to check up on their childrens' diets. The prices of food should also fluctuate with market prices, and the menus should be diverse and constantly changing. So an electronic menu would be necessary. Also, these restaurants should be low frill affairs. They should also start in cities and there will need to be a lot of them initially to achieve the kind of economies of scale that will make the food affordable. O, and it needs to be deliverable. The mission statement of this business should follow along the lines of... improve the health of your customers while providing transparency of dietary information at an extremely low price (meal + snack for between meals for about $2-4, yes it's possible).
Side note: the reason this will work is because kitchens are expensive to build, grocery stores are inefficient (it's a middle man), healthy restaurants are unnecessarily expensive, peoples time is increasingly limited and valuable, cooking for yourself is inefficient, fast food is generally unhealthy, and fewer and fewer people can cook or ever do so at home.
And yes, all my ideas eliminate jobs. I'm evil. Then again wouldn't it suck if we still had blacksmiths and ice delivery men? There's plenty of work to be done in this world. Don't cling to menial tasks that can be done better by technology.
Logan = Lab Rat
I've been toying around with this one for a while now. The idea is to see how cheaply I can feed myself while maintaining healthy eating habits. Now don't get me wrong, I could live for $1.50 a day and eat nothing but rice and vegetable oil. The idea is to maintain a semi-normal lifestyle for a fraction of the cost (as I've always claimed was possible). The experiment will last 4 weeks starting tomorrow morning. I'm going to shoot for about 2,400 calories a day. Generally 1,800 is recommended for women and 2,200 for men, but I'm a bit bigger so whatever. I'm going to the grocery store as soon as I finish this post and here's what I intend to buy:
Hot Cereal (aka gruel)
Dried Black Beans
Wheat Pasta
Prego Traditional
Skim Milk (whole would be more economical)
Cereal
PBR
Potatoes
Quinoa
Brown Rice
Olive Oil
Eggs
Soybeans (edamame)
Garbanzo Beans (to make hummus)
Tomatoes
Avocados
Corn
Peanut Butter
Onions
Garlic
Wheat Bread
Flax Seed (pre-ground)
Apples (the one and only granny smith)
The list will be modified of course. The idea was to pick foods that were high in fiber (to keep me full) and filled some nutritional gap. Yes, beer is necessary. Interestingly, the list of foods appears to be vegetarian and almost vegan... odd. This won't be too scientifically rigorous. I'm sure I'll end up going out to eat and getting drunk on a large bottle of expensive vodka, but these experiences will just further elucidate how wasteful my day to day lifestyle is. I'm shooting for less than $5 a day. Again, I could make it cheaper but I'd have to exclude alcohol, fruits, and vegetables.
And to any of my friends that read this; the day after this experiment is over (Wed. Feb. 11th) will be taco night at my house.
Hot Cereal (aka gruel)
Dried Black Beans
Wheat Pasta
Prego Traditional
Skim Milk (whole would be more economical)
Cereal
PBR
Potatoes
Quinoa
Brown Rice
Olive Oil
Eggs
Soybeans (edamame)
Garbanzo Beans (to make hummus)
Tomatoes
Avocados
Corn
Peanut Butter
Onions
Garlic
Wheat Bread
Flax Seed (pre-ground)
Apples (the one and only granny smith)
The list will be modified of course. The idea was to pick foods that were high in fiber (to keep me full) and filled some nutritional gap. Yes, beer is necessary. Interestingly, the list of foods appears to be vegetarian and almost vegan... odd. This won't be too scientifically rigorous. I'm sure I'll end up going out to eat and getting drunk on a large bottle of expensive vodka, but these experiences will just further elucidate how wasteful my day to day lifestyle is. I'm shooting for less than $5 a day. Again, I could make it cheaper but I'd have to exclude alcohol, fruits, and vegetables.
And to any of my friends that read this; the day after this experiment is over (Wed. Feb. 11th) will be taco night at my house.
11 January 2009
My Creative Friends
Recently a few of my artistic friends have been quite productive. One of them, Justin, started silk screening around the same time I got into dark room printing. Anyways, here's his latest (sold out in a day) work. I go on gigposters.com every once in a while to find some cheap handmade posters. You can find some awesome stuff there. You can find Justin's stuff there too.
08 January 2009
Blink... and Paintball
For JC's birthday I asked for and received many books that I had been looking for at the library, but had never been able to locate. Apparently libraries are growing in popularity.
Anyways, I read Blink in a little over a day. It's a book by the ever popular and quoted New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell. This is his second book. The first one being The Tipping Point and the latest being Outliers. Both of which I plan on reading after my current slew of books.
It was a good book, not amazing but pretty good. None the less I find myself talking about it a lot. The concepts he talks about are very applicable to everyday life. Namely, the snap judgments we make and how they can be good or bad. Many of the research studies were famous psychology experiments that I was familiar with, but the extra factor that I had never been aware of was all the product development cases he wrote about. Money for experiments flows to the areas where the most profit can be made... so naturally a lot of it goes to product development.
Then an issue was brought up that I think about all the time but never know how to contextualize or really just do anything productive about; firearm fire fights. I always wonder if all those years of playing paintball has taught me anything with a real world application (outside of the whole Randy Pausch head fake theory). To be honest I'm not sure that anyone really knows for certain. I don't know any former professional players who have or would even consider joining the military, police, etc. And I'm not talking about warfare. Just small groups of people shooting at each other.
Gladwell posits that people enter a state of "temporary autism" when put in such a situation. That is, they focus intently on one thing and other stimuli such as noises and time get blurred or entirely erased. It's funny because there are all these cops' stories about shooting a bad guy, and they all say the same (predictable) things, "time slowed down, I don't remember the shots, etc." I feel in some ways like it's wrong of me to chime in. After all, I've never been involved in a shooting of any sort. Nor do I really wish to be, but some things about paintball have always been true for all its participants.
No matter who you are and how level headed you normally are, after a game of paintball you breath heavier, you're all jacked on adrenaline, your sense of time is screwed up, and you're about 100 times more likely to yell and get in a fight (I'm constantly embarrassed by this). In short, you kind of lose your mind and go on some primitive autopilot. This is what Gladwell attempts to explain. It's also worth mentioning that that feeling you get when playing subsides over time, but never goes away entirely. It's like that part of Fight Club when Edward Norton says that being in Fight Club turns down the volume on everything. Nothing seems like as big of a deal. It takes more to rattle you. But is it really fair to say that playing paintball a lot is in some way really similar to being involved in a fire fight or going to war?
I think, to some extent, yes. I just never know what to do with this idea. It's something that paintball players think a lot about, and something that most military and law enforcement officers will be quick to deny the merit of. Even though their training in actual combat situations or real life experience is severely limited. Blink is essentially a book about how informed people can make snap judgments in their fields of expertise and perform with remarkable accuracy. This is something we can all attest to. Most of us are extremely proficient at at least one thing. It's the nature of our specialized worker society. One of the things I'm really good at (relative to the general population) is paintball. Paintball is a relatively new sport. There aren't a lot of terms for moves, positions, and styles of play. Beyond the basics it's also really hard to teach people how to play it well, and even when you are really good it's hard to explain why you're so good (a similar concept is talked about in the book).
What I'm trying to say is that I think certain professions could get some really cheap and effective training by using paintball as an instructional tool and hiring professional players to help guide them. We're all poor and willing to work cheaply! At the very least it's a good work out and it'll teach its participants to think calmly under pressure. The ability to remain semi-calm under pressure is the biggest plus. This is what should make paintball appealing to a variety of people. Hell, one of my paintball friends trained with a bunch of Navy SEALS and scout sniper teams and Camp Pendleton in CA. Three paintball players (1 old pro, 1 field ref, and probably the best player in the world) against 12 of America's top badasses... all veterans. To be fair he said they were great marksman and learned really quickly, but in the end it was an ass kicking all day by the paintball players. But how is that surprising? Most military personnel are only in for 2-4 years, and most of that time you aren't running close quarters combat simulations. Now compare that to a bunch of kids who grew up playing paintball 2 days a week for several hours for 5,7, or 12 years (for me by the time I was 23). It just seems like a huge waste to not tap some of that talent.
Anyways, I read Blink in a little over a day. It's a book by the ever popular and quoted New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell. This is his second book. The first one being The Tipping Point and the latest being Outliers. Both of which I plan on reading after my current slew of books.
It was a good book, not amazing but pretty good. None the less I find myself talking about it a lot. The concepts he talks about are very applicable to everyday life. Namely, the snap judgments we make and how they can be good or bad. Many of the research studies were famous psychology experiments that I was familiar with, but the extra factor that I had never been aware of was all the product development cases he wrote about. Money for experiments flows to the areas where the most profit can be made... so naturally a lot of it goes to product development.
Then an issue was brought up that I think about all the time but never know how to contextualize or really just do anything productive about; firearm fire fights. I always wonder if all those years of playing paintball has taught me anything with a real world application (outside of the whole Randy Pausch head fake theory). To be honest I'm not sure that anyone really knows for certain. I don't know any former professional players who have or would even consider joining the military, police, etc. And I'm not talking about warfare. Just small groups of people shooting at each other.
Gladwell posits that people enter a state of "temporary autism" when put in such a situation. That is, they focus intently on one thing and other stimuli such as noises and time get blurred or entirely erased. It's funny because there are all these cops' stories about shooting a bad guy, and they all say the same (predictable) things, "time slowed down, I don't remember the shots, etc." I feel in some ways like it's wrong of me to chime in. After all, I've never been involved in a shooting of any sort. Nor do I really wish to be, but some things about paintball have always been true for all its participants.
No matter who you are and how level headed you normally are, after a game of paintball you breath heavier, you're all jacked on adrenaline, your sense of time is screwed up, and you're about 100 times more likely to yell and get in a fight (I'm constantly embarrassed by this). In short, you kind of lose your mind and go on some primitive autopilot. This is what Gladwell attempts to explain. It's also worth mentioning that that feeling you get when playing subsides over time, but never goes away entirely. It's like that part of Fight Club when Edward Norton says that being in Fight Club turns down the volume on everything. Nothing seems like as big of a deal. It takes more to rattle you. But is it really fair to say that playing paintball a lot is in some way really similar to being involved in a fire fight or going to war?
I think, to some extent, yes. I just never know what to do with this idea. It's something that paintball players think a lot about, and something that most military and law enforcement officers will be quick to deny the merit of. Even though their training in actual combat situations or real life experience is severely limited. Blink is essentially a book about how informed people can make snap judgments in their fields of expertise and perform with remarkable accuracy. This is something we can all attest to. Most of us are extremely proficient at at least one thing. It's the nature of our specialized worker society. One of the things I'm really good at (relative to the general population) is paintball. Paintball is a relatively new sport. There aren't a lot of terms for moves, positions, and styles of play. Beyond the basics it's also really hard to teach people how to play it well, and even when you are really good it's hard to explain why you're so good (a similar concept is talked about in the book).
What I'm trying to say is that I think certain professions could get some really cheap and effective training by using paintball as an instructional tool and hiring professional players to help guide them. We're all poor and willing to work cheaply! At the very least it's a good work out and it'll teach its participants to think calmly under pressure. The ability to remain semi-calm under pressure is the biggest plus. This is what should make paintball appealing to a variety of people. Hell, one of my paintball friends trained with a bunch of Navy SEALS and scout sniper teams and Camp Pendleton in CA. Three paintball players (1 old pro, 1 field ref, and probably the best player in the world) against 12 of America's top badasses... all veterans. To be fair he said they were great marksman and learned really quickly, but in the end it was an ass kicking all day by the paintball players. But how is that surprising? Most military personnel are only in for 2-4 years, and most of that time you aren't running close quarters combat simulations. Now compare that to a bunch of kids who grew up playing paintball 2 days a week for several hours for 5,7, or 12 years (for me by the time I was 23). It just seems like a huge waste to not tap some of that talent.
30 December 2008
Reading
Crazy Czech dude's blog about living in the Alaskan wilderness by himself.
If I had a few million dollars I would rip off this idea and build this testosterone fueled "theme park" in the US.
I want this persons job.
Google Yourself
I must have done something pretty terrible in a former life... why? If you google my name the search results are dominated by a gay Australian pornstar who happens to share a name with yours truly. If however you know a little bit about me and add a term like "paintball" to your query, this is the first page related to me that comes up. Which as it happens, makes it number 2 on the list. It is interesting, or sad for paintball rather, that the professionals are lower on the list than some 15 year old kid who lists paintball as his hobby. I don't think that would ever happen to an NFL player.
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