Trying to find a GPU to run some tests at work.  Went over to Fry’s at lunch and the shelves were bare.  I asked one of the sales clerks what was up.  He just said “bitcoin”.

Hanging out.

A mailing from the Boston Review today contained an essay from Junot Diaz.  I started to read it and quickly realized it was the better part of a decade old.  It focused on the 2011 earthquake in Haiti, near Diaz’s homeland of the Dominican Republic.  It also touched on other recent disasters, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and Fukushima in Japan.

The root of the word “apocalypse” is ancient Greek for “uncovering” (or “revelation”).  Diaz explores what is revealed in these disasters.

Apocalypse

What disasters reveal

JUNOT DÍAZ

A few pics from the weekend in Bryan / College Station, TX.

Driving back to Austin from College Station we like to stop in Elgin at Southside Market and get some BBQ.  The line was long, and we waited almost 20 minutes to get to the counter to place our order.  We usually get a lot of stuff, bring it home and eat it for a few days.  Brisket, turkey, baked potato with brisket.  I saw a sign that said Beef Ribs, Saturday and Sunday day only.  The price listed was per pound, and I inquired how big a beef rib was, by weight.   The lady behind the counter grabbed a dinosaur sized piece of meat and bone, tossed it on the scale.  $35. Seemed like a lot, I dithered, and realized people in line were staring at me.  I turned to the guy in front of me and said “can’t pass that up”.  He nodded.  We added the beef rib to the list.  Ate a bit when we got home and it was delicious.  Cheap at twice the price.

One other thing struck me waiting in line.  All sorts of people.  Old, young, black, white, Latino and Asian. People coming from church, soccer games or just passing through.  A real slice of America.  Almost as impressive as that beef rib.

Gonna be harvesting some salad soon!

A good article by Kevin Love of the Cleveland Cavaliers:  Everyone is going through something

The bluebonnets are blooming and I finally got around to setting up the indoor garden.

Been busy with the new job this week.  Noticed some momentum on the #deleteFacebook movement.  Of course, selling your personal information has always been Facebook’s business model.  The larger problem is that people aren’t just using this information to sell you consumer products, but also using it to sell you political ideologies.  This seems to be happening to the exclusion other factual information.  I’m not interested, thank you, and hence this blog.  Also had my odometer turn lucky 7777, with a temperature of 70F.  Wish I was sitting in front of a slot machine for that one.  And a nice breakfast for the whole family this morning.

It occurred to me this morning that when I was a child, there were very similar protests against gun violence in the US.  Young people were being killed in large numbers by military assault style rifles and the youth of America took to the streets in large numbers to protest.  Of course, this was the 1960s, and the students being killed were soldiers in Vietnam.

Somehow the older generation at the time, the Greatest Generation, did not see this as a problem.  They had gone to war, or at least their peers did, and some of them died.  The younger generation saw the world differently.  They didn’t see a communist Vietnam as a threat to America.  It must be pointed out that the people in favor of the war in Vietnam largely weren’t the ones doing the fighting, and the ones opposed were largely the ones dying.  Very similar to today.

To pile the irony in deeper, today’s pro-gun crowd are the same generation that protested the war in Vietnam in their youth, with almost identical complaints.

Of course, the youth movement of the 1960s did not achieve its aims, at least in the short term.  Nixon was re-elected in a landslide and the war in Vietnam would not end until 1974.  It was largely believed that the children of the 1960s, even with their huge demographic advantage, abandoned politics after these defeats.  They would not go quietly, though, and it is hard to think of any part of the culture not dominated by the Baby Boomers of the intervening decades.  We all live in their world today.

Best of luck to the kids.  One thing is certain, they will win in the war of attrition.  May they build a better world than their parents did.