Six Reasons Why Men Are Avoiding Marriage

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

This interesting article with video gives six reasons why men are less inclined to marry than in the past.

X10 Has Reemerged

Friday, August 9, 2013

I mentioned in April that the primary X10 manufacturer looked like they were restructuring. Well, it looks like the restructuring is over and a new company has assumed X10 manufacturing and distribution.

Update: This article has some non-X10 solutions. 2013-08-20

Is "Leadership" Overvalued?

Thursday, August 8, 2013

This article highlights the "leadership" emphasis of the usa and why that approach is just one of many ways to value individuals.

The Decline of the Civil-Rights Establishment

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

This editorial about the George Zimmerman verdict does the best job in explaining the illogical and disheartening reaction of many black leaders:

Today's black leadership pretty much lives off the fumes of moral authority that linger from its glory days in the 1950s and '60s. The Zimmerman verdict lets us see this and feel a little embarrassed for them. ... This would not be the first time that a movement begun in profound moral clarity, and that achieved greatness, waned away into a parody of itself — not because it was wrong but because it was successful. ... The purpose of today's civil-rights establishment is not to seek justice, but to seek power for blacks in American life based on the presumption that they are still, in a thousand subtle ways, victimized by white racism.

There are vast career opportunities, money and political power to be gleaned from the specter of Mr. Zimmerman as a racial profiler/murderer; but there is only hard and selfless work to be done in tackling an illegitimacy rate that threatens to consign blacks to something like permanent inferiority. If there is anything good to be drawn from the Zimmerman/Martin tragedy, it is only the further revelation of the corruption and irrelevance of today's civil-rights leadership.

Update: This poll reflects a more nuanced approach. 2013-07-24

Update: An article about anti-white racism 2013-08-23

Why Women Still Can't Have It All

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

As part of the Atlantic's series of articles about women's issues (1, 2, 3), this final article generated the most feedback. The first part of the article denounces the idea that a woman can have a fruitful home and business life if she just "tries hard enough" — success in both areas requires much more than effort. The article hinges on these paragraphs:

Still, the proposition that women can have high-powered careers as long as their husbands or partners are willing to share the parenting load equally (or disproportionately) assumes that most women will feel as comfortable as men do about being away from their children, as long as their partner is home with them. In my experience, that is simply not the case.

Here I step onto treacherous ground, mined with stereotypes. From years of conversations and observations, however, I've come to believe that men and women respond quite differently when problems at home force them to recognize that their absence is hurting a child, or at least that their presence would likely help. I do not believe fathers love their children any less than mothers do, but men do seem more likely to choose their job at a cost to their family, while women seem more likely to choose their family at a cost to their job.

Many factors determine this choice, of course. Men are still socialized to believe that their primary family obligation is to be the breadwinner; women, to believe that their primary family obligation is to be the caregiver. But it may be more than that. When I described the choice between my children and my job to Senator Jeanne Shaheen, she said exactly what I felt: "There's really no choice." She wasn't referring to social expectations, but to a maternal imperative felt so deeply that the "choice" is reflexive.

At its base, this quote pivots on the question of whether behavior is determined by nature or nurture. Of course, the answer is somewhere in between — theories that suggest behavior is based totally on inherent tendencies or the environment never match reality.

The article goes on to suggest that making the business environment more family-friendly would help women have more fulfilling home lives and careers. An unanswered, over-arching question in the article is whether a paycheck or highly-visible societal role is required for fulfillment, and whether men and women tend to answer similarly.

Update: A sobering article about why having it all often makes women less happy 2013-08-12

The Tyranny of Money

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

A month ago, new Pope Francis made some interesting comments about capitalism and the overemphasis on money and financial success.

X10 Reemerging

Thursday, April 25, 2013

After expressing concern about X10 devices no longer being produced, new devices are now reappearing in stock.

Mobile Website Version

Friday, March 1, 2013

I have updated my website to display better on mobile devices, like cellphones and tablets.

X10 Challenges

Friday, February 1, 2013

For the past several months some of my X10-controlled lights have been randomly turning on. I have only recently had time to research this, and after days of unplugging devices and turning off circuit breakers, I found that my Lenox heaters were the cause of the random behavior. They were producing enough electrical interference to trigger X10 devices to turn on. I installed an X10 filter on the heater and it has fixed the problem.

This certainly shook my confidence in continuing with X10, and with X10 production fading, I would love to have a flexible, affordable alternative, though I am not sure one exists currently.

Climb the New High Mountain

Monday, January 21, 2013

As a history buff, I was aware of the secret code phrase used to signal the start of the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese in 1941. The secret code was "Niitaka-Yama Nobore 12 08" (original Japanese, movie rendition), meaning "Climb Mount Niitaka". ("12 08" indicated December 8, Japan time, which was December 7, Hawaii time.) In 1941, Mount Niitaka was the highest mountain in the Japanese empire, higher than Mount Fuji. (It is the current-day Taiwanese Yushan mountain.)

I assumed Mount Niitaka was chosen because it was the highest Japanese-controlled mountain, but today I learned that Niitaka means "new high mountain", so "Climb Mount Niitaka" literally means "Climb the New High Mountain", the "new high mountain" being the United States.