with thesis out of the way (update to possibly follow, although my topic was not that satisfying to me and i'd be happy not to revisit it for sometime, if only to avoid the pain that comes with seeing a previously unseen error. such revisting might be necessary, however, sooner than later as there is interest from some quarters in turning one part into a submissible manuscript), i can turn to some leisure reading for approximately 17 minutes, before the next thing comes down.

i've still been thinking a lot about foster wallace's death. the rolling stone piece by david lipsky is first rate, and really just goes to show you how fucked up antidepressants can be, but also really speaks to the ways in which wallace was a classic white male author (substances, women, drink), which is somewhat heartening.

in any case, i'm hoping to tackle infinite jest at some point (v. soon) although i would like to get away from reading white dudes for a while (i picked up an octavia butler novel at the library, also, to facilitate this). i got a wallace secondary source that seems to be pretty legit, and which source i'm hoping willl help me to get further through IJ than i did last time (~175 pages). i'm buoyed by a friend recently completing it. which means that it is possible.

i'm gearing up by reading some of the things i already know. but i came across one essay in a supposedly fun thing i'll never do again about this tennis player named joyce. it's helping me think about (as opposed to just enjoying the prose, which is what i usually do) why i like wallace's writing. one thing is clearly his ability to take in a situation and know that situation and then help you to know it as well. this is the great thing about his nonfiction--there's almost no barrier between what's happening, and you since DFW (seemingly) lets you in on everything that he's thinking about and that composes his experience. obviously something must be filtered for the printed page, but it seems like not much is. he's far and away my favorite nonfiction author, but the fiction...maybe the problem is that the fiction leaves reality behind, so whatever is going on in wallace's mind is just too advanced for me. when he's stuck in the real world he has to meet me on my level, necessarily. with fiction there are no such constraints.

plus this guy really fucking loves tennis. and i really couldn't care less about tennis. but i want to read anything that he's written about it.

fine malt thesis

my biggest fear right has nothing to do with not finishing the thesis. it's about setting the margins somehow incorrectly and grad studies making me wait another quarter to get my degree.

a handy option in word is the ability to set a gutter in addition to a normal margin. i'm not exactly sure in what way it's different from a normal margin, but i've added two one hundredths of an inch to the left gutter and it seems much better. for some reason what word showed as a 1.5 inch left margin on the screen was in fact not 1.5 inches wide by my ruler, once printed.

this isn't turning into a word 2007 tips blog. although, there should be one. i have big plans for scholarly work post-thesis involving science studies, engineering, and travel demand modeling. excited? i thought so.

word 2007 tip

when you have a large table (or anything else) that you need to print in landscape, but you want to keep the page numbers vertical, you won't find any help on the internet.

the only way to do it is to insert a text box in the footer (after unlinking everything, of course), then insert a page number at that position. PRESTO.

don't forget to remove the outline from the textbox.

MS thesis due in seven days.

dfw: in memoriam

i was saddened today to learn about the apparent suicide of david foster wallace. death has not yet been something that i've had to deal with in any serious way, so the recent double-blow of extremely smart people whom i respect (alex farrell, preeminent energy researcher, passed away in mid-april), both by suicide, is quite shocking.

i was only turned on to dfw's writing a couple of years ago, but i immediately ripped through all of his nonfiction. when approaching his fiction, up until this point, i've stumbled. infinite jest was put back on the shelf after a measly hundred-or-so pages. it may be time to pick it back up.


cheers, to david foster wallace.

china

a recent back and forth in science is worthy of note. liu and diamond published a policy forum back in january on china's environmental conditions attempting to answer the question about how to fundamentally alter the system such that environmental quality is improved.

they propose the consolidation of china's disparate environmental agencies, and the establishment of a new, higher level, agency. this agency would presumably coordinate high efficiency/low pollution measures--green gdp, among others. other "fundamental changes" include things like "changes in attitudes towards the environment." okay buddy. if only.

the fundamental problem with these types of institutional/attitudinal reform arguments is that they don't question consumption or development--a point raised in a letter by ellis, in response to liu and diamond. he notes, correctly, that the same criteria guide the governments of china and the US (namely economic performance) and that the only reason the US seems green is because much of its impacts have been exported to other places and are not accounted for when the US does its environmental accounting. he concludes that a good policy would involve the internalization of costs, regardless of geographic location.

this all seems very good. unfortunately, liu and diamond had to respond in a typical scientific (pompous) manner with a letter of their own. in it, they don't refute any of ellis's points but simply highlight the fact that chinese administrators seemed to take note and completed some institutional reform as a result. far from reedeeming themselves, their response indicates to me that they're still stuck in a techno-optimistic framework where governments can policy themselves out of environmental degradation without addressing root causes. and i thought jared diamond was cool.

good ole' richard branson

from drudge report: branson's bogus eco-drive.

while drudge undoubtedly posted this as yet another illustration of green hypocrisy (see past culprits al gore and live earth). the next jump he'll want you to make is that climate change is bogus or that nothing should be done to stop it because all of these eco-crusaders are burning fossil fuels like there's no tomorrow.

i agree with part of this argument although i'd make a distinction between folks like branson and those like gore. i'd call the hypocrisy exhibited by a richard branson, greenwashing. he's taking a stance on climate change in general, then assuming all of his ventures (virgin galactic? ZOMG WTF) take on a green shade. flying jets on 20% biofuel, empty, is not going to solve the climate crisis.

al gore, on the other hand, is actually engaged in activism on a day-to-day basis. flying around is something he needs to do to get this message out. even the more hardcore peakists (heinberg, kunstler, etc.) all have raised issues with continuing to use commercial flights. quoth heinberg:

I fly to educate both general audiences and policy makers about fossil fuel depletion; in fact, I’m writing this article aboard a plane en route from Boston to San Francisco. I wince at my carbon footprint, but console myself with the hope that my message helps thousands of others to change their consumption patterns. This inner conflict is about to be resolved: the decline of affordable air travel is forcing me to rethink my work. I’m already starting to do much more by video teleconference, much less by jet.

so there you have it, to educate folks, right now, we need to travel. as the availability of cheap fuel declines, we will simply fly less. i think (hope) that al gore understands this. branson on the other hand, is an idiot, but drudge takes it one step too far.

western climate initiative

a lot of the talk at yesterday's EJAC meeting was regarding the western climate initiative (WCI). committee members expressed concern at being left out of the process--apparently july 29 was the last stakeholder meeting to discuss the policy. it was met with protests. the protesters concerns are not new, and all concern cap and trade. (i'm just going to take from the signonsandiego article. group is in bold, concern follows.)

1. environmental leaders: undermine california's efforts by allowing purchases of allowances/credits elsewhere, thus deferring a low-carbon transition at home.
2. labor officials: would encourage industry to leave california in favor of areas with fewer rules.
3. several critics: said the system would be open to manipulation and gaming.

the response: "Leaders of the Western Climate Initiative said they will take yesterday's comments into consideration as they craft a final plan for release in September."

hm. so, california comes out with this great plan, lots of (sort of) accountability. EJ provisions, public health provisions. a truly major environmental public works project. but now they latch on to the WCI and suddenly it becomes another nafta superhighway. what the hell is going on? shouldn't these protests and the EJAC meeting be cluing in the WCI leaders that they need more transparency, not less? if they stopped acting like corporate pigs, they could realize that a properly designed cap and trade system could address all concerns. but instead they're shrouding themselves in secrecy. i suggest to the WCI stakeholders that this is not a winning strategy.