It's the (cock)pits

For once the Freakonomics guys don't have the best guest commentator on a subject. Last month they befriended an airline pilot named Steve, who they've let rant about the industry and offer a few useful glimpses into pilots' work. Alas, the reader comments are more interesting by far. Over on Salon.com another pilot is a lot more coherent and offers much more interesting and useful insights, though he too has a tendency to rant a bit. Must be something about pilots. Anyway, go read Ask the Pilot when you have time to spare. Fascinating stuff.

Virtual homelessness

This is awesome. It's a blog reporting on the simulated game world of a homeless father and daughter, Kev and Alice. "That's a game?" you ask. Yup, welcome to The Sims 3, a simulation game where you create people and construct homes (or not, in this case) and neighborhoods, send young ones to school, older ones to work, and help your charges avoid death until old age takes them. Completely silly and fascinating at the same time. (Alice and Kev's creator also has a Twitter feed for them). Naturally I learned of this fabulous oddity through the Freakonomics blog. :)

Might as well be Mothra

The light brown apple moth is becoming quite the pest. Not that I've seen any, or am likely to ever see one. But they're out there, bugging me, because their presence in my world prevents me from taking advantage of a really cool produce-trading service, or any other free local produce, for that matter.

A few months back I offered to give away via freecycle my bounty of shiny ripe kumquats. I'm not a fan of the flavor of this small edible-skinned oblong citrus, but I was sure others would be. And as I've never spotted them in the produce section of the store I figured whoever likes them would jump at the chance to strip my tree bare. Sure enough, within an hour I'd received multiple requests for as many kumquats as I had to offer. But then amidst the enthusiastic replies came a reminder about the light brown apple moth quarantine area. I was in it, and no giving away of produce was allowed from within its bounds. Hmph.

I wrestled with doing the right thing versus thumbing my nose at the law by sharing potentially LBAM infested fruit. One respondent suggested an alternative: allow people who wanted to, to just consume kumquats on my premises, thereby not breaking quarantine. But that sounded a bit odd and time consuming. I could have ignored the helpful quarantine reminder altogether and had no difficulty in being left off the hook from friends and neighbors, since no one I've spoken to about it was aware of the ban on sharing even backyard produce within the quarantine area. After explaining my quandary to one friend, he wondered, "But if you're under quarantine, why can't you share with other people also in quarantine?" I've found myself educating everyone I mention it to (the reason is to contain moths where they are, period), and worrying that the quarantine is going to be in effect a very long time if everyone around me is unwittingly keeping this dumb pest around. Alas, such thoughts did nothing to unburden my kumquat tree. So as with so many things (though undoubtedly not enough things) I took the high road on this one, and have kept the kumquats to myself.

And so I sit here on a warm sunny day, looking out my window at the compact citrus tree that shades my patio, and watch as the breeze knocks another overripe fruit to the ground. And then I glance to my desk where I see a reminder about the need to clear fallen fruit ASAP to discourage loitering rats in the area. Sometimes it's not about getting ahead, sometimes it's enough just to be staying in place.

Nuts about Abs

I've got two interesting health related articles from the New York Times to recommend to you today, one on the possibly misguided abdominals exercise craze and the other on the possibly misguided childhood nut exposure avoidance craze. Don't want to read the articles? Here's the gist--sit ups are not good for your back; there are three simple exercises that are probably all you need to maintain a strong torso (but not the aforementioned sit-up); and having all our kids avoid nuts is nutty if what we're after is a decrease in food allergies (besides, the incidence of severe allergic reactions is much much lower than parents might be led to infer from the paranoia evident at schools and daycare centers).

Short attention span theater

A few random thoughts I've been entertaining lately:

Among ways to die, being sucked out of a disintegrating plane several miles above the ocean is not one I'd prefer.

News of the protests in Iran gives me some hope.

The idea that someone might remake Valley Girl sends a chill down my spine.

The California budget mess continues to distress me. There is absolutely no win in any of the solutions proposed, and I loathe no-win situations.

I really like the series of pieces being aired this week on NPR's All Things Considered about the cost of health care.

Loved the "Oversharing" discussion on Forum last week about today's virtual relationships. In particular the bit about inviting all one's facebook friends to a party, only to have one person show up.

Think about the difference between responsibility and accountability.