Guns, Yet Again

 I have blogged about the problem of gun violence in America, over and over, to where I am tired of writing on that subject and have resolved,  more than once, to say no more about it.

Yet mass shootings, particularly  school shootings, incredible and of course tragically, continue. And, they're even getting worse. Last year there were 270 school shootings, the most since 1970.

I believe the chief cause of the high rate of homicides in America is the prevalence of guns. (Yes, you can kill people with a knife, but if you intend to kill a number of people, a gun is much more efficient.) The United States has the loosest gun laws in the world. Coincidence?

You don't hear too much about the experience of Australia. The national government of Australia created an incentive for Australian citizens to turn in their guns. The result? Homicides decreased 97%. Ninety-seven percent!

Yet, time after time, it seems we absorb these experiences with little or nothing happening. Why, in heaven's name? Other countries shake their heads in disbelief and probably are even afraid to visit the United States.

The reason is because we have a powerful gun lobby—the NRA, other gun owners' organizations, gun manufacturers—and legislatures and governors—chiefly Republican—who have thwarted meaningful gun control.

True, we have the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Yet jurisprudence has held that the gun-owning right is not absolute and can have limitations imposed. At one point--for a few years--assault rifles were illegal. Then that law expired and was not renewed.

Origins of a Few Words From Our Techie Society

For a couple hundred years, England was ruled by Danish or Viking kings. One of them was known as Harald Bluetooth (one surmises that he had a blue tooth). Why that should be a suitable name for a communication protocol--well, you are free to guess.

Widget was a term for a hypothetical or fictitious product of a manufacturing company. For example, a business-school test might have a question like, "If the XYZ Corporation manufactures widgets and they can produce 1000 widgets an hour…."

The name Google probably was suggested by the word googol, uttered by Milton Sirotta, the nephew of the mathematician Edward Kasner and used by Kasner to denote the quantity 1 followed by 100 zeroes.

Copyright © 2022

Climate Change/Global Warming

One of the reasons I'm rather pessimistic about the prospect for our world's beating the global warming/climate change problem is that not enough is being done about it. We hear the world's politicians talk about it but any action being taken is at some point going to be seen to have been too little, too late.

Americans (for one) don't appear to be changing their habits, and I don't really hear anyone urging them to. Where are the leaders urging people to drive less? To not buy big and thirsty SUVs? (The equation is simple: more fuel consumed = more greenhouse gases being emitted.) And who has—or would have—the bravery to discourage Christmas lights in the name of saving energy? Anyone who did so would be accused of being anti-religion or even anti-God (show me where in the Bible we are commanded to string electric lights upon our houses to celebrate the birth of Christ).

Electric vehicles are expected to do much to reduce production of greenhouse gases; but so far, in most countries, the penetration of EVs into the car market has been rather insignificant--on the order of 3% to 6% of car sales. One reason is that electric cars suffer from a serious price disadvantage. And, I do not see any great numbers of charging stations in my area. On the other hand, "range anxiety"--the fear of drivers that they will be traveling and their car's charge will be running out when they are not near any place where the car could be charged--might be diminishing because electric cars' range (on a charge, that is) has been increasing.

I myself have given some thought to getting an electric car. If I got one it would probably receive all or nearly all of its charging in my garage. But, to have and use only 110 V charging is very slow; and to install a faster, 220 V charger in my garage I'd have to buy a charger and pay an electrician to wire it into my house wiring--for a total cost of nearly $1000. 

I'm sure electric cars are the wave of the future, but it's going to be a while before they are truly common. Better, cheaper, lighter-weight batteries must be developed, and I don't think anyone is sure when that will  happen.

Another thing, on a somewhat different note: Rainforests, as we hear often, are a very important repository of carbon, and cutting down and/or burning these trees not only reduces the amount of carbon that can be absorbed from the atmosphere, but the burning of the trees releases carbon that has been locked up perhaps for centuries. Yet in Brazil, the trees of the Amazon rainforest, one of the most important on the planet, are being cut down and burned, to make room for pasture land or farmland (e.g., plantation of palm trees for the palm oil that is showing up in so much of our food)--not to mention that this process is depriving indigenous people of their land and homes. Yet Brazil's President Bolsonaro does nothing to stop this pillaging and destruction of the rainforests of his country.

In many nations there are conferences, there are speeches. But is enough being done, aside from talk? At least a few scientists warned of the problem decades ago. True, we have some renewal energy--wind farms, etc.--but they still are providing only a small percentage of energy consumed. We need "transformative" change, and it doesn't seem to be happening.

Copyright © 2022.

Stein's (My) Laws

 You may have heard of some of the laws in the sciences, like Boyle's Law. And maybe some of the (definitely) non-science laws, like Parkinson's Law. Well, I want to jump on this bandwagon; so here are some of my "laws."  I've come up with others but sadly they might just be forgotten.

1.      There's always a better way to do something—faster, simpler, cheaper.

2.      As soon as you buy gas, you see it cheaper at another station—usually  within a few minutes and within two or three blocks.

3.   You only get an itch when both  hands are full so you can't scratch it.

4.      You see the “easy open” tab or zipper or whatever after you've opened the package with brute force or taken a knife or scissors to it.

5.      Two men with similar facial hair are likely to be perceived as looking alike

6.      You get out the can opener and then realize it's one of those pop-top cans.

7.   Never talk about--say negative things about--someone to a third person. It will get back to   them--a lesson I learned slowly and painfully. 

8.  In looking for an item on the cupboard shelf (e.g.), as soon as you say "I can't find it" or "I don't see it," you do see it. At least this is true for me.

9. We love 'em (e.g. Mexicans, Irish) over there--but when they move here, as immigrants, it may be a quite different story.

10. Things very often turn out to be more difficult or more complicated--and take way longer--than we ever foresaw.

11. The order in which you do things frequently is very important.

Copyright (c) 2022

What's Wrong in America (at least in my opinion)

 

I haven't posted to this blog in a long times, so I thought it might be nice to start the new year with a blog posting.

So, here goes: What's wrong with the world (or perhaps mainly America), according to me.

1. The prevalence of guns. When everybody is carrying a gun, an argument or just one person getting very angry can result in a gun being pulled and then someone being shot. I think this is pretty obvious but the gun proponents (or anti–gun control types) doubtless would dispute it.

When I was younger, the term road rage was not in anyone's vocabulary (nor was school shooting). Nowadays an argument we call road rage my well result in someone being shot.

2. Social media companies fostering polarization of their users and the spread of disinformation--not to mention their near-destruction of any such thing as privacy because they exist to collect--and sell--information about you and me.

3. Growing social and economic inequality. The rich are getting richer, according to all statistics. You may say, "more power to 'em," but when wealth is concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer individuals that has to mean that some others are getting poorer It’s a zero-sum game. And, if nothing else, it is simply cruel and unjust that many people live in poverty.

4. More and more, minority groups such as Native Americans, Blacks, Asian-Americans and others are refusing--to put it in terms we used when we were kids--to be pushed around anymore. That's fine, I for one want to see them winning their rights and a fairer shake in our society. The problem arises when there are those--and these groups are growing, at least in number--who oppose all this, who want some real or imagined past order to remain or return. Groups like white supremacist groups. When people with 180-degree opposite opinions and goals get more and more vocal, it's not going to be just words hurled by one group at the other; and of course this has already occurred and there is no way this can be a good thing.

All this is not even to mention the problems which imperil our planet in perhaps a more physical way: global warming and climate change, destruction of the environment, extinction of plant and animal species, runaway world population--it's saddening and wearying even to get into this list.

Some of these problems certainly are not unique to America but are found in many other western countries, if not in the whole world. I've been hearing a number of voices who are pontificating on the direction we (often "mankind") are going. So many of them seem optimistic, and hold out hope of some sort or to some degree. I can't feel so optimistic because it seems to me that there is inertia which keeps us locked in the status quo--not to mention greed, corruption, and many other human failings which mitigate against change, or at least not change soon enough or fast enough. My crystal ball shows me that--for example, regarding action on global warming--it's going to be "too little, too late."

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