The Diary of An Invisible Man
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Peter Maranci" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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11:37 pm
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Iron Man?
I don't suppose anyone in the area would like to go see Iron Man with me tomorrow during the day?
Current Location: Home
Current Mood:  tired
Tags: movies
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02:39 pm
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Notes for Sebastian: Medicine
Be very skeptical about new medicines and procedures which haven't been in common use for at least a generation - call it 20 years. Longer would be better.
Time and again new medical breakthroughs have turned out to have huge, unexpected side-effects, or even to be actually harmful. If it hasn't been used for long enough that a generation of patients have died of natural causes, it may not be safe. The history of medicine has shown this time and again.
Generally speaking, it's best to chose the "simplest and least" option whenever possible. Disaster is most often caused by complication and confusion. And when it comes to your health, it's best not to take a chance. There are no do-overs when it comes to your body; it's one per person, and that's it.
Of course you should listen to your doctor! But make sure that he or she is worthy of your trust, and don't be afraid to let her/him know that you prefer a cautious approach whenever feasible.
Current Mood:  thoughtful
Tags: advice, notes for sebastian
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11:13 pm
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Almost forgot: lessons
I keep forgetting that I want to start writing some entries with advice for Sebastian; stuff I've learned over the years that I think is important for him to know.
Current Location: Home
Current Mood: contemplative
Tags: sebastian
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11:03 pm
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To do (tomorrow)
Lots to write about: the roof, the house, and the computer.
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09:12 pm
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New Computer Time - wait, maybe not
It arrived, and it looks really cool. But my monitor apparently won't work with it. The monitor isn't broken, mind you. I plugged it back in to my old machine, and it was fine. In fact, I'm using the old machine to write this right now.
But when I plug the monitor into the new machine and turned it on, nothing happened. Tried turning the monitor off and on, too. Nothing.
I'm not disappointed, because on some level I didn't expect it to work right away anyway. I wonder if the problem is that the monitor is simply too old? That seems very unlikely, but it IS over ten years old, I think. It's a Princeton Graphics 19-incher, an EO90.
I was planning on buying a new flatscreen anyway, so I'll probably get one tomorrow and see if that works instead. Does anyone know anything about LG as a brand? They have a 22-inch monitor that's $30 more than the Hannspree, but it seems to have much higher customer ratings - and the tech specs look considerably better too, to the extent that I understand them.
Funny, I'm just not that excited about the new system. But I'm not even disappointed at the anticlimax. Maybe I'm getting old.
Current Location: Home
Current Mood:  blah
Tags: computer
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08:52 am
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Oh my god
I was just composing an article about Hillary over on Open Salon. It was going SO well; I was smiling and laughing at some of the stuff I wrote (and no, it wasn't a mean post).
Do you know what it's like when an article seems to be almost magically writing itself? When the words and jokes flow out so easily and beautifully? That's so fucking rare for me...I can't stand it.
I didn't compose it offline as a text file because I wanted to use some of the special editing features on the site. But when it ocurred to me that I'd better be safe and save, and clicked on "Save draft and preview", fucking Open Salon LOST MY ARTICLE COMPLETELY! And I stupidly didn't save a copy of the text first; I was lost in a warm creative glow.
This is so fucking painful. I can't stand it. I'm done with Open Salon for good.
Current Mood: anguished
Current Music: David Bowie - Ashes to Ashes
Tags: angst
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10:23 pm
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New Computer Tomorrow!
It's going to be delivered tomorrow by UPS. I'm kind of numb. How many years have I been waiting for this? Too long.
We're thinking of getting a new monitor, too. I saw some flatscreens at BJ's Wholesale Club; they have a 20.1" HP monitor for $229. Hmm, I see that Wal-Mart has a 21.6 Acer monitor for the same price.
Hmm, Best Buy has a Hannspree 22" monitor that can be rotated to a vertical position (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) charibdis has one like that; it's really cool) for $239. I wonder if Hannspree is a Chinese company?
Current Location: Home
Current Mood: sleepy
Tags: computer
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10:12 pm
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Can Cars Survive the End of the Age of Petroleum?
This is my first attempt at a substantive post over on the beta version of Salon's new "Open Salon" blog-like thingy. I was excited to find a link to Fredric Brown's wonderful short story "The Waveries" for it; if you haven't read that story, you should!
The automobile has been an essential part of the American national character for more than seventy years. It's arguably the definitive American characteristic, far more pervasive than pale pretenders such as baseball and apple pie. An America without cars is virtually unimaginable. But now that it has become painfully clear that we are witnessing the beginning of the end of petroleum as the dominant form of energy, can the American automotive dream survive?
Perhaps not. If the transition to new forms and sources of energy is handled poorly (or not at all), then the issue may not matter; people will be too busy scrabbling for food and the essentials to worry about personal transportation. Alternatively, a better-managed process might end up concentrating on mass transportation systems, most likely some form of light rail.
Local transportation would be by foot, by horse, or perhaps by bicycle. The author Fredric Brown painted a rather Utopian vision of such an American future in his classic short story "The Waveries". But such a peaceful evolution towards an idealized sort of 1890s level of technology is difficult to envision, at best. The United States government has not been noted for that degree of long-term planning and social engineering.
It is also possible that such a level of technology might not be sufficient to support current world-wide population levels; violence on an unprecedented scale would be the likely result. Whether or not the human species would survive is open to question.
But if one or more alternative sources of energy are developed and implemented throughout the US, the car is still in trouble. Developments in electric car technology do offer some hope; by decoupling the car from petroleum. Any energy source which can produce electricity on a large scale would be sufficient to charge an electric car.*
But driving habits would have to change, requiring a considerable change in attitude and behavior on the part of Americans. Long-range driving would be impractical or impossible. Cars would need to be charged overnight, every night before use.
The crux of the problem is this: gasoline, in addition to its relatively low cost and convenience to transport, is also an extremely dense form of energy. To refill the average gas tank takes a few minutes at most, and that full tank yields hundreds of miles of driving.
Even if battery technology improves to the extent that a fully-charged battery allows the same driving range, batteries simply cannot be recharged as quickly as a gas tank can be filled. Barring startling developments in battery technology, electric cars will require an hour or more to recharge. If you thought gas station lines were bad in the 1970s, imagine what they'd be like if it took an hour (or several hours) to refill at the pump!
The recharge speed limit also limits the long-distance range of electric cars. As such, it implies a fundamental rethinking of the American automotive experience (which might not be a bad thing, of course). But there is a way around it. While batteries cannot be recharged as quickly as a tank can be filled, the batteries themselves can be made quickly and easily replaceable.
The "gas station" of the electric-car future would maintain a stock of fully-charged batteries. These would have to be standardized on a national basis, although it is unlikely that only one type would be offered; larger batteries would probably be needed for trucks and heavier vehicles. On the other hand, it would be neither practical nor desirable for each manufacturer to use a proprietary battery - it simply wouldn't be possible for most stations to maintain a sufficient stock of each brand of battery to handle most eventualities.
The batteries would be designed to be removed and replaced quickly and easily, probably by machine. Security would be necessary, of course. Just as more cars are likely to have locks for their gas caps in the waning days of petroleum, batteries would be secured by lock and key.
Is such a future possible? It's fully possible using already-existing technology; it requires no technological breakthroughs. Is the US government and the American automotive industry capable of achieving it? That seems far less likely.
But would Americans adjust to it? Faced with Hobson's choice, of course they would - if the alternative is giving up on America's long love affair with the automobile.
* - There is also, of course, the matter of developing a non-petroleum-based industrial base capable of manufacturing such a car at a cost affordable to most Americans. But that's beyond the scope of this article. It is interesting to contemplate a future in which only the rich can afford automobiles, while the masses are forced to depend on less-advanced or convenient forms of transport. I rather suspect this would engender class warfare on an unprecedented scale.
Current Mood: accomplished
Tags: article, cool, links, opensalon
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12:01 pm
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Sick
I'm home sick today. I'll spare you the details. If only I could spare myself the details as well!
Here's an epigram I just derived from an answer I wrote over an Askville about the "risk of faith" in being an atheist:
"We are feeling beings that think, not thinking beings that feel."
Current Location: Home
Current Mood:  sick
Current Music: Radiohead - Creep
Tags: askville, atheism, health, links, philosophy, religion
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08:42 pm
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The Weekend
They both just fell asleep.
I'm finally feeling better; whatever the problem was, my system purged itself over 24 hours (but was was a pretty awful night). I have a splitting sinus headache, but I'll take some Tylenol soon.
The computer is supposed to be delivered tomorrow. But Teri will be working for part of the day, so I don't know if we'll actually be able to receive it. I'm going to have to try to figure out how to best transfer data from the old system to the new one; any suggestions would be very much appreciated!
Current Location: Home
Current Mood:  hopeful
Current Music: The Kinks - Better Things
Tags: computer, health
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08:35 pm
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Birthday!
It's tzunder's birthday today. I hope you had a great one, Tom!
Current Location: Home
Current Mood: better
Current Music: The Kinks - Better Things
Tags: birthday
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09:44 pm
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Posting slowdown
Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been pretty busy, and there has been a lot to deal with.
One thing that's kind of interesting is that the T has finally - wait, I need to explain first. If you don't read my Charlie On the Commuter Rail blog (and why should you, if you don't ride the T?) you might need a little set-up.
Basically ridership skyrocketed on the commuter rail over the past month or so. Some time during that month, the T cut the train down from six single-level coaches to five. The situation got so bad that people were being jammed into the vestibules of the trains: the areas between coaches, where passengers are NOT supposed to ride. Apparently they're crumple zones.
This was happening every day, and on average there were 12-14 people jammed into the vestibules alone. The aisles in the coaches were likewise jammed. I estimated that there were approximately 200 standees per train, every day.
Since standees are by far more likely to be seriously injured or killed in the event of an accident, a lot of us standees were pretty outraged.
I've mentioned all this this here before, of course.
Anyway, I wrote to the Governor and got a response within 24 hours - and it was a fairly responsive response, too. They made no promises, though, so I decided that I'd continue pushing the issue until something was actually done. So last Friday I brought my camera to take some decent-quality video of the overcrowding situation.
I got a shock when the train pulled up: it was five coaches, all right, but four of them were double-level coaches! I figured it was a fluke, so I brought the camera again on Monday, Sure enough, there were four double-level coaches again. I was even able to get a seat after the Dedham stop, which is much earlier than usual.
I got an email from the MBCR that day. They told me that the train had been "returned" to it's proper capacity. This puzzled me, since it had never BEEN a double-coach train in my experience, and it had never had that capacity. But nonetheless, the Franklin #715 train has continued in the same configuration all week: four double-level coaches and one single-level coach. On Tuesday I actually got a seat when I got on at Ruggles. Nobody rode in the vestibules, and only a few people were standing.
I'm sure that my agitating played only a small role at most in getting an adequate amount of seating put on that run. Odds are that the real reason for the change was that the conductors hadn't been able to collect a penny in fares for weeks. But it's nice to think that my work might have helped make a difference, and made a lot of people a bit safer and more comfortable.
Current Location: Home
Current Mood: accomplished
Tags: commute
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03:18 pm
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A hell of a dream
I had an incredibly bad dream this morning.
I woke up. And suddenly I remembered that we had had another child before Sebastian; a little boy, very much like him but without red hair. And for some reason, we'd given him away to an ignorant young couple that could only be described as white trash. They'd taken him away to live with them in Texas. The pain had been so great that for years we simply couldn't bear to think about it...and we'd ended up forgetting about our first son almost completely.
Until, for some reason, I suddenly remembered him.
We hadn't given him away as a baby; he'd been three or four years old, bright and talkative and loving. We'd promised to talk to him and see him again. But we didn't. And I could only wonder what our precious, intelligent little boy had come to in the care of those trashy strangers.
Throughout the dream, I was sobbing uncontrollably. The thought of our little guy in the hands of strangers, wondering what had happened to us or perhaps forgetting us, was more than I could bear.
Current Location: Home
Current Mood: thoughtful
Tags: dreams, sebastian, strange
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11:34 pm
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Colbert vs. Stewart
My comment on an article over on the Washington Post about Colbert vs Stewart:
The Daily Show has funnier sketches and supporting players (not surprising, since Colbert's on-camera supporting team is much smaller). But Steven Colbert is a far more incisive and effective interviewer than Jon Stewart, who has a tendency to take it easy on his guests.
All in all, The Daily Show is marginally funnier, but Colbert is more biting and newsworthy. But both shows are funny and great.
If I had to vote for one of the two for President? Colbert. His in-your-face speech at the 2006 White House Correspondence Dinner was one of the most impressive acts of political courage that I've seen in the past twenty years.
Which is, I'll admit, a sad commentary on the state of American politics: that a truth-to-power speech by a comedian to a criminal President and criminally negligent Washington press corps ranks as a major act of courage. Nonetheless, it does.
Current Location: Home
Current Mood: sick
Tags: boards, politics, tv
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11:21 pm
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House - no, not the series
We went to the bank and started the process of getting a home equity line of credit to have the roof done. It's going to be a bit pricey, but Teri thinks we can afford it; the monthly cost will be slightly less than our old car payment. We still need to get a fair amount of paperwork to see if we can actually get the loan, though.
But...
As I wrote recently, the realtor come over about a week ago. She thinks we can sell the house for around $155,000. The next step is to talk to a lender to find out how much we can afford to spend on a new house. But there are a number of points that are confusing me.
Well, the truth is that I think both of us are very nervous at the thought of selling the place! We don't know how it would work out. Would we be able to buy a new place right away? Would we have to put our stuff and storage and maybe rent for a while? It feels a little bit as if we're being rushed. But the truth is that if we sell and are in a new place (renting or owning) in a good school district before the school year starts, that would be good for Sebastian.
I gues we just weren't quite ready for the decision to come at us so fast. And now that we're actually facing the prospect of leaving, I have to say that I'm going to miss this house! It has been kind of fun living in such a unique place. And we've fixed or are fixing every major problem that could possible go wrong with the place: the main drain line. The electical system. The furnace. The roof. Whoever buys this place will be getting a considerably better house, infrastructure-wise, then it was when we bought it.
Here's what we'll be looking for in a new house, in approximate order of importance:
- A good school district
- A good neighborhood, with kids for Sebastian to play with
- A decent commute for me - preferably within walking distance of the commuter rail
- An energy-efficient heating (and possibly cooling) system
- No major repairs needed - we really don't want to have to replace ANOTHER roof or main drain line!
- More space - not a lot more, necessarily, but enough living room so that we can be comfortable
- A decent-sized yard, at least large enough to barbecue in
- I'd like to be closer to Boston, so I can see my family and friends more often. Teri doesn't agree with me on that one, and it may not be possible anyway; houses get a lot more expensive the closer they are to the city
- A decent-sized kitchen
- A fireplace
- What else?
I need to figure things out.
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11:04 pm
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Catching up
So much to do...I need to respond to three emails. I need to update a website for a friend of my father, although I probably can't do that until I get my new computer...which, by the way, has been ordered.
I also have several posts I'd like to make. They're about the house, the roof, the Muddy River, and a couple of ideas I've had recently. Oh, and the commuter rail.
But it's late, so I'll probably just do one or two more posts before going to bed.
Current Location: Home
Current Mood: creative
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09:27 pm
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Birthday!
Happy birthday, tonysalieri! And as we like to say in the Village, many happy returns. 
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12:18 pm
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Sebastian Away
Sebastian has been begging to have a sleepover at my parents' place, so he'll be sleeping over there tonight and tomorrow. We won't see him for two whole days!
He rode in with me on the commuter rail this morning, and I told him how much I would miss him.
"I won't have anybody to read to at night!" I said.
"You could read to yourself!"
"That's not the same."
He leaned towards me and whispered, smiling, "Everything will be back to normal on Saturday."
Current Mood:  lonely
Tags: sebastian
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09:08 am
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Go to bed an atheist, wake up a Christian
Someone over on Askville posted a question about going to bed as an atheist, and waking up a Christian. Actually, the exact wording was "I went to bed an atheist and woke up a Christian what happened?".
If you're like me, you immediately came up with a joke answer involving loud sex and waking up a Christian neighbor. But it turned out out that the questioner was serious. I've seen this a lot when dealing with Christians; inevitably some of them claim to have once been atheists, but later found Jesus.
I've heard this so often that I ended up writing a rather lengthy response on the subject. I thought it came out rather well, so maybe you'll find it of interest:
I think most Christians who claim to have once been atheists fall into a certain pattern.
First, they usually were not really atheists. Far more often, they simply grew up in a religious vacuum; raised with a typical apathetic American unawareness of religion. They never (or hardly ever) went to church, except perhaps at Christmas time.
But that's not the same as actually thinking about religion and making a conscious, aware choice to be an atheist.
Invariably such apathetic, non-religious people are nonetheless exposed to religious cultural conditioning ( Read more... )
If anyone has any suggestions for improvements, I'd love to hear them.
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03:49 pm
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Letter to Governer Patrick:
Sir,
For the past 3-4 weeks the Franklin #715 train (departing South Station at 4:10pm) has been desperately overcrowded. Not only is every aisle full of standees, but passengers are being forced to ride in the vestibules between the coaches as well. By my estimate there were at least 190 standees yesterday on the five-coach #715.
This is now TYPICAL of the ridership on that train.
It is, of course, forbidden for passengers to ride in the vestibules due to safety concerns - but there is simply no other option.
Conductors are unable to collect fares. Two days ago I stood for half an hour next to a woman who was six-months pregnant; she couldn't get a seat, and had to physically squeeze past standees along half the aisle to get off at her stop.
Given that standees have a much greater likelihood of being injured during an accident, the current state of overcrowding presents a daily hazard to a large and increasing number of riders. This matter is urgent, and needs to be addressed immediately.
MBCR and MBTA management have repeatedly refused to address this issue. Please do not simply forward me to MBTA/MBCR management; they will not take any action. Large numbers of MBTA passengers are being placed in danger on a daily basis, and there is no sign that ridership is going to decrease. Please take meaningful action.
I've also contacted the Boston Globe and Boston Herald - I'll let you know if either follows up with me.
Current Mood:  angry
Tags: commute, letters
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