A world without jobs

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This article is way too long for anyone with a job to read. So here are a few nuggets:

“Work is … how we give our lives meaning when religion, party politics and community fall away.”

Whether you look at a screen all day, or sell other underpaid people goods they can’t afford, more and more work feels pointless or even socially damaging – what the American anthropologist David Graeber called “bullshit jobs”

“I do think there is a fear of freedom – a fear among the powerful that people might find something better to do than create profits for capitalism.”

As all such articles do, this one mentioned UBI (Universal Basic Income). I don’t know if that’s a good idea or not. But I can almost imagine a world in which — for whatever reasons — there are just a whole bunch of people without jobs. And I can only see two options for dealing with them: Let them starve or provide them with food and shelter. Some way, somehow. I’m counting on smarter people to come up with more options.

Beyond the Bitcoin Bubble

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Excerpts from a really good article by Steven Johnson in the New York Times.

The real promise of these new technologies, many of their evangelists believe, lies not in displacing our currencies but in replacing much of what we now think of as the internet, while at the same time returning the online world to a more decentralized and egalitarian system. If you believe the evangelists, the blockchain is the future. But it is also a way of getting back to the internet’s roots.

After a period of experimentation in which we dabbled in social-media start-ups like Myspace and Friendster, the market settled on what is essentially a proprietary standard for establishing who you are and whom you know. That standard is Facebook.

What Nakamoto ushered into the world was a way of agreeing on the contents of a database without anyone being “in charge” of the database, and a way of compensating people for helping make that database more valuable, without those people being on an official payroll or owning shares in a corporate entity.

If you think the internet is not working in its current incarnation, you can’t change the system through think-pieces and F.C.C. regulations alone. You need new code.

Blockchain metaphors

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As Blockchain gains more acceptance (not talking about cryptocurrencies now but the underlying tech) I’m seeing more and more metaphors that try to help people grasp the concept. This article compares Blockchain to sharing Google Docs, as opposed to bouncing a MS Word doc back and forth. The DNA metaphor didn’t really work for me. My favorite was the transparent safes (from online forum Bitcoin Talk).

“Imagine there are a bunch of safes lined up in a giant room somewhere. Each safe has a number on it identifying it, and each safe has a slot that allows people to drop money into it. The safes are all made of bulletproof glass, so anybody can see how much is in any given safe, and anybody can put money in any safe. When you open a bitcoin account, you are given an empty safe and the key to that safe. You take note of which number is on your safe, and when somebody wants to send you money, you tell them which safe is yours, and they can go drop money in the slot.”

This reminds me of the early days of “the cloud” and how people struggled to comprehend where their files were if they weren’t on their computer.

“Meditation is not about doing anything”

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“Meditation is not about doing anything. It is simply paying attention.”

Not counting basic hygiene (brushing my teeth, etc), the only thing I do every day is meditate. I sit for 30 minutes, sometimes longer. Every day for the last 500 days. I keep track but I’m not sure that’s good idea. Too easy to get fixated on the streak, keeping the string going.

I’ve missed twice in the last 1,000+ days. Once when I was sick and again when out of town attending a high school reunion (#50). I’m not sure why I keep track of my practice. Maybe it’s for the same reason prisoners make marks on their cell walls (do they still do that?). They’re afraid they’ll forget how long the’ve been in prison? I’d rather think I keep track because it gives me a little added encouragement to sit, although I really don’t think I need that anymore. My daily meditation is the best half hour of my day. But why?

Steve Hagen says meditation is useless. The only reason to meditate is to mediate. Which sounds like something only those who meditate would say or understand. I’m sure when I started (10 years ago?) it was for stress management or relaxation or something but somewhere along the way it became an end in itself.

I find it simultaneously the simplest thing in the world and the most difficult. I’m sitting on a cushion on the floor, focused on my breath. What could be easier? And within seconds my mind has jumped to some random thought… I gently bring my awareness back to my breathing… and the cycle repeats, endlessly. Why would anyone invest half an hour every day doing this? Again, Steve Hagen: “At the heart of meditation is the intention to be awake.”

Meditation Now or Never (PDF of favorite excerpts)

Land Rover walk around

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Mr. Wolf thought I’d like to hear the sweet sound of the 2.25 liter diesel engine that will drag my saggy ass around town. He’s been working long and hard on getting the engine right. If you look closely you’ll see some smoke. Not as much smoke as the mosquito fogger that patrolled our streets during the summer nights of my youth… but a little smoke. What the fuck, I’ll buy some carbon credits. I’m hoping there will be less smoke once the engine gets some miles on it. That will happen as soon as he gets the brakes sorted out.

When I opened the brakes up I found some things I didn’t like, so I’ve ordered all new OEM wheel cylinders, new adjusters, and new shoes. Even high quality parts are so cheap for this thing I figured we should just start fresh with nice parts.

If you don’t know shit about old trucks, and I don’t, you need someone like Mr. Wolf. You’d like to think the folks doing the restoration would get everything right… but they don’t.

Land Rover Update

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“Feeling good about the Rover right now. New injectors made a big difference, it’s running smoother and making more power. Many hours of fiddling with the injection pump may have paid off, better cold start and less smoke.”

The Land Rover project is about three months behind schedule, to the extent there was ever a schedule. The 2.25 liter diesel engine simply wasn’t performing the way Mr. Wolf thought it should. Too much smoke. Just not right. Until today the working assumption was a problem with the o-rings on the injectors.

“The ones that were in there originally seemed like they weren’t big enough (not a tight fit) but everything else I could find wouldn’t allow the injector to fit in the bore. Given that the actual injector seal is accomplished by a copper sealing washer AND an aluminum crush-washer, I think the o-ring is really only there to keep debris from falling in. Therefore I’m thinking that the slightly loose fit is actually just fine, but I’m open to being proven wrong. So I reassembled it with the old o-rings.”

Whether or not I’ll be able to find someone to keep a 40 year old diesel engine running well enough to make the Land Rover an everyday truck remains to be seen. Which is why Mr. Wolf is going to such great pains to get the engine right before he send the truck my way. But this has always been more about fun than easy.

It’s been a long time since I drove a car (or truck) without power steering or brakes. The Land Rover has neither and I’ve been told it’s like learning to drive all over again. With that in mind, Mr. Wolf is giving extra attention to the brakes on my truck. Adjusting drum brakes is something of an art, I’m told.