It is the oldest complaint in the book. "If it weren't for the government, we would have (comparative adjective) (commodity)." For example, "if it weren't for government, we'd have cheaper gas," or "if it weren't for the government, we'd have cooler radio programming," or "if it weren't for the government, we'd have better schools."In the five years, the really vogue statement has become "If it weren't for the government, we would have (cheaper/faster/more accessible/better/European-like/fairer/safer/free/unlimited) internet." Of course, all of...
Wednesday, 29 June 2011
Monday, 27 June 2011
Last week I was named to Ingram's Magazine "20 in their twenties" list, which recognizes "a score of up-and-coming twenty-somethings who are flexing their entrepreneurial muscle and making their mark on the Kansas City business scene." In case that link dies, here's what they wrote about me:When it comes to innovation, Alex Waller oozes entrepreneurial zeal: “If you want to step into the game, you have to be tireless, ambitious, and not afraid...
Saturday, 25 June 2011
Let me describe a form of transportation for you. Upon leaving the house and heading for work, a commuter find the nearest "terminal" and climb aboard the mass transit utility. This utility moves along a predetermined path (as do many other replicates of it) and at various points commuters get on and off as suits their personal commute. The mass transit utility is a large machine that is driven by a trained professional. If you get to a terminal...
Friday, 24 June 2011
Here's a question for you: if "spam filters" are readily available (and increasingly effective) for email service, why is there no spam filter for snail mail? I think some people would probably be willing to pay a monthly fee for junk mail filtering. It could be a good revenue source for the cash-strapped USPS. People pay $5/month and the USPS automatically filters out any credit card applications or mass sent mail.It would be easy to set up, too. When the USPS mail sorting system is scanning letters, if it sees several hundred parcels of mail...
Tuesday, 14 June 2011
Almost 2 years ago (!) I wrote a short entry titled "How It All Ends" in which I argued: When we destroy this planet, I mean really tip it over the edge, it'll be because we wrecked the oceans. Life started with water, and life will end with it.The problem is that people can see land-based pollution and ecological destruction quite well. Air-based destruction of the environment is a bit harder to see, and unsurprisingly air-based pollution regulation...
Friday, 10 June 2011
Typically I have two themes on this blog when I write about environmental policy. The first theme is that humanity's continued growth is incompatible with a sustainable environment. Given that the majority of humans on Earth are still increasing their level of consumption, and are below the levels of consumption of America and western Europe, then the pace at which we are damaging the environment (if human progress continues) will only increase. The second theme I have is that given the above, I have to believe humanity has passed a "point of no...
Thursday, 9 June 2011
Dear Ava,As I was sitting here at work, on my lunch break, I felt a knot build in my throat. Your mother and I had just been on the phone, discussing her cousin's wedding we will be taking you to in Joplin, MO on Saturday. Your mother, bless her kind soul, has volunteered to help her Aunt decorate and undecorate the church and reception area, which means that from about Saturday morning at 7:30 to until midnight, you and I will be together. As your mother described this to me, and I said "it will be fine, we'll go see the tornado damage or something"...
Tuesday, 7 June 2011
I call b.s. on Ross's opin that Anthony Weiner needs to resign.A confession is just words, so much sound and fury, without an act of contrition, and the act of contrition appropriate to Weiner’s offenses is the resignation of his office.I'm trying really hard to imagine what offenses Ross is talking about. Certainly, if Representative Weiner has broken the law then he should resign. But if extra-marital shenanigans is the extent of Weiner's tomfoolery...well, if every politician who was guilty of the same or worse resigned...government would...
Normally I'd be at the front of the line to make fun of motivational posters, but I saw one on Sunday and it spoke to me, because of some things going on that I can't really divulge yet. Forgive my self indulgence."Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow...
Monday, 6 June 2011
I think the reason this editorial by Dale Stephens rubbed me the wrong way is because it validates the accusations of Gen X and the Boomers' that my generation has a massive sense of entitlement.The current recession has provided a unique opportunity to see just how painful life can be without a college. Unemployment is directly correlated to education level, as seen in the chart below from Calculated Risk. In fact, not getting educated is almost...
Friday, 3 June 2011
Thursday, 2 June 2011
I think what a lot of people miss when they try to extrapolate extremophiles into the argument that life could exist on Mars or other seemingly hostile non-Earth planets is that the extremophiles did not originate in their current extreme environment.Most paleobiologists agree that the reason life arose on Earth was that the "primordial soup" was perfectly suited for life. It was warm, wet, and complex organic molecules had become abundant. There was a high level of Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, and Carbon in various forms. Hydrocarbons existed in...
Wednesday, 1 June 2011
I've written a bunch already about driverless cars. So when Tyler Cowen has a column in the New York Times about it, my interest was piqued. Cowen highlights the impediments to switching society to driverless cars:Enabling the development of driverless cars will require squadrons of lawyers because a variety of state, local and federal laws presume that a human being is operating the automobiles on our roads. No state has anything close to a functioning system to inspect whether the computers in driverless cars are in good working order, much...
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