Category Archives: Industrial Change Surfing

The industrial revolution is a powerful set of waves that has crashed into our lives. We, the modern man, must consciously decide how to surf these waves. If we do not pay attention, we can drown. If we select the right waves, we can gracefully enjoy our time like no man before us. If we truly excel, our opportunities are historically unprecedented.

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All, Comfort and Convenience Plagues

Industrial Sugar

Sugar as we know it today is table sugar, which is refined sucrose.

Concentrated sugar includes cane sugar, beet sugar, and high-fructose corn syrup. To start, let’s just look at the overall change that has occurred.

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, sugar came from sugarcane, which grows in tropical climates and is native to southeast Asia. Sugar was expensive outside these regions and always labor-intensive to refine. The Greeks and Romans were aware of sugar, but they did not consider it a food, they considered it a medicine.

Sugar remained a plant by-product with limited refinement until the Industrial Revolution.

Timeline

1493, Christopher Columbus brought sugar to the New World from the Spanish Canary islands. Sugar fueled the African slave trade in the following centuries.

1747, German chemist Andreas Marggraf discovered sucrose in beet root, giving another plant source of sugar in addition to sugarcane.

1768, a steam engine first powered a sugar mill in Jamaica and thus began the industrial mechanization of the refinement of sugar.

Modern Effects

This has brought about cheap sugar, and desserts as sweet as we can desire that are often cheaper than traditional food, and made of sugar rather than sweetened by sugar.

Industrialized sugar refinement has brought about normalization of sugar as a food group. Even if you don’t eat candy, there are many other foods that are sweetened with huge amounts of sugar that we often consider to be normal food. Donuts for example, or soda as a drink to wash down a meal.

Solution

How to keep the good part of the industrial refinement of sugar without the unnatural extreme sweet diet? The answer is to have zero refined sugar inside your house. This rule might seem extreme, but by historical standards, refined sugar is an exception within our diets, a rarity. It is not normal to eat refined sugar regularly. Our bodies are not accustomed to it and it is not healthy.

All, Time v3

About Industrial Time

About Post-Industrial Time, click here.

The Fundamental Disruption of Industrial Time

Time, measuring the passage of time, and telling the time of day, are among the most fundamental aspects of human life. The Industrial Revolution changed how we tell time so fundamentally that we don’t even realize that there was ever another way. I call the current conventional format for measuring time “Industrial Time.”

You probably are familiar with Industrial Time as “time,” or “normal clocks,” or the answer to the question:

What time is it?

Our current time format is so widely adopted that it seems odd to give it a specific name to differentiate from another format for telling time – since we don’t currently use any other ways to tell time – but we should give it a name because it really is new. It is called “Industrial Time.”

Industrial Time and the Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution has brought about such a pace of change that Industrial Time – despite its earth shaking consequences to our daily lives – is lost among numerous equally important and fundamental changes that we have quickly accepted as normal. What is really weird is we accept things so arbitrary and disconnected from natural reality simply because our lives are short and the generations that knew another way have died. The Industrial Revolution began around 1760, which at 25 years per generation, is about 10 generations past. 10 generations is not many, but it is enough to almost completely wipe away life experience of a different reality.

Our perception of the world is based on our own short realities. This works when the world remains the same for thousands of years at a time, but when the world changes fundamentally every two or three generations, we should make an effort to understand the changes. In my Industrial Change Surfing category, I consider industrial advancements that we accept as normal, even though they are all less than 10 generations old.

Post-Industrial Time

Click here for Post-Industrial Time clocks.

About Post-Industrial Time – click here.

All, Time v3

About Time v3 (Post-Industrial Time)

Post-Industrial Time, A Timeline of Progress

Time v1: Pre-Industrial Time, until ~1775

Without accurate clocks, one looks to the sun, stars, and moon as a reference for time. This is pre-industrial time.

Time v2: Industrial Time, 1775 – present

Captain James Cook, on his second voyage from 1772-1775 used a watch / chronometer, that cost a third as much as a ship cost at the time that was accurate enough to determine his longitude as he sailed around the world. The watch was called the K1. The K1 was designed by John Harrison, then Marcum Kendall successfully crafted a copy, and Kendall was rewarded by the British government. Basically, the K1 watch told Captain Cook that the sun was early or late as he traveled, something we would understand as “switching time zones.” Prior to this, Cook would have looked to the sun and not known “what time it is” in his home of England and would have continuously adjusted to the sun. By knowing “how early or late” the sun was, he had a steady reference, and Cook used the reference to calculate his longitude. Captain Cook continued to use the new watch for the rest of his travels as an indispensable navigational guide. This was the first time a person referenced a machine rather than celestial objects to determine the time. This is Industrial Time. This is the time format we are familiar with today. A century after Cook’s voyages, in 1884, at the International Meridian Conference, world leaders discussed and chose, …a meridian to be employed as a common zero of longitude and standard of time reckoning throughout the world. Time zones were born. Industrial Time calculated by machines effectively replaced nature to determine “what time it is” and we never looked back. Until now.

Time v3: 2018 and Beyond

Machines are now flexible enough to give us a time format that is accurate and precise while still remaining relevant to the natural world around us. Enter Time v3 (Post-Industrial Time). The time v3 at your location is: During the day, the amount of time, in the standard hours and minutes to which we are accustomed, since the sun rose. Sunrise occurs at time 00:00. Time v3 also includes the day length for reference. Sunset occurs when the time equals the day length. Midday is half that amount of time, and the sun will always be directly in the north or south at midday (or overhead). Example: The time is now sunrise plus hh:mm:ss. The day length is hh:mm. The night length is hh:mm. At night, the time v3 is the amount of time until the next sunrise. At night time v3 counts down from the total night length to zero. Example: The time is now sunrise minus hh:mm:ss. Tomorrow’s day length is hh:mm.

Time v3 Clocks for Various Locations Here

  You will immediately notice that post-industrial time is location-specific. It is meant to be used locally, only with people who are within a normal day’s commute of you. Within that space it varies only a few minutes. It can be used within a city and surrounding suburbs for example. It can be used to set the time that employees arrive at work in order to have them arrive at a reasonable hour with respect to nature, the whole year round. It is not useful for coordinating flight arrival times, phone calls outside your city, etcetera. Post-industrial time does not replace industrial time. Industrial time is still useful and in fact, industrial time makes it easy for computers to calculate post-industrial time. An exception is that post-industrial time will make daylight savings time changes obsolete. Post-industrial time needs industrial time, and it improves on industrial time. It uses industrial time and the flexibility of machines (computers) to give us a time that is more natural.

Post-Industrial Time, Live It Love It

Post-industrial time connects us with the people around us, who we can relate to in person, by bringing to attention what we share with our local friends: sunrise, sunset, midday, longer and shorter periods of light and darkness. Post-industrial time puts nature back where it belongs, ahead of the machines and our man-made conventions by measuring our industrial lives using natural events rather than measuring natural events with industrial inventions. Post-industrial time forces the machines to adapt to us, rather than the other way around by directing the machines to give us time that is based on nature. Post-industrial time is fun by shaking up something we thought to be older than the hills. Post-Industrial time is a better future by remembering the past.

Keep Industrial Time!

I am not opposed to Industrial Time. I believe it should remain, and Industrial Time should continue to be used in its current state in many situations. Industrial Time works well in an industrial, global world! However, Industrial Time is new, weird, arbitrary, and disconnected from the natural events it measures. It should be treated as such, and it should have its own name, Industrial Time.

Post-Industrial Time Clock Projects

  • https://nathanruffing.com/timev3/
  • Android app: currently on github
  • Javascript version for website: currently on github.
  • Contact nate@rr34.us for access to the repositories.
  • Physical clock on a Raspberry Pi: under development
  • i-phone app: Swift?
  • Aaron’s Raspberry Pi

For Developers

We are actively coding in order to enable the use of Post-Industrial Time with clocks.

Post-Industrial Time Coding Notes

At a given location, the post-industrial time is:

Daytime

If daytime at location, i.e. the sun is up / above the horizon. i.e. the most recent event was a sunrise rather than a sunset, then the post-industrial time is: Sunrise + hh:mm:ss. The day length is hh:mm. The night length is hh:mm. Where the sunrise is the most recent sunrise at that location. The total day length is included for the current period of daylight for reference.

Nighttime

If nighttime at location, i.e. the sun is down / below the horizon. i.e. the most recent event was a sunset rather than a sunrise, then the post-industrial time is: Sunrise – hh:mm:ss. Tomorrow’s day length is hh:mm. The night length is hh:mm. Where the sunrise referenced is the next sunrise to occur at that location, and the amount of time is the amount of time until that event. It counts down to zero at night. The total night length should also be included for the current period of nighttime.

The Polar Regions

The issue arises in the polar regions where the sun does not set during a particular industrial calendar date / rotation of the earth. When this is the case, the post-industrial time still continues to count up since the sun last rose above the horizon, and the day length is still the total time until the sun sets. Near the poles, the sun may remain above the horizon for months at a time. This means that the post-industrial time WOULD reach over 4,000 hours. Half of a year is 4,380 hours. In the polar regions, when the day length exceeds 24 hours, the unit “rotations” must be introduced and the post-industrial time becomes: Sunrise + rr:hh:mm:ss. The day length is rr:hh:mm. One rotation = 24 hours. *See note. This is required in order for the post-industrial time to continue to have meaning with respect to where the sun is in the sky. In the arctic region, the most recent sunset will have been in the south, and therefore the rr value will tick up approximately when the sun crosses south. As the sun circles around just above the horizon (arctic region), the sun will be in the west at about xx:06:xx:xx, north at ~xx:12:xx:xx, east at ~xx:18:xx:xx, cross south again at ~+1:00:xx:xx. This will be true for the entire duration of a multiple rotation day. Day length [should be?] within a few minutes of when the rr value ticks up and day lengths will be within a few minutes of multiples of 24 hour periods. *Note, this is all relative to the sun and not relative to the stars, don’t try to get clever and use a “sidereal day” for the number of rotations. The rotations are relative to the sun.

All, Time v3

Time to Re-Implement our Old Time

I propose that we re-implement an old time format that makes much more sense. Many might consider it a “new” time format, but that’s because nobody today is old enough to remember how we did time before. You would have to be ~150 years old. Computers and smart phones finally enable us to wake up from the madness. The time format goes like this:

-What time is it?
-“It is plus 47 minutes right now.” (which it actually was when and where I wrote this, because the sun rose 47 minutes ago here in Columbus, Ohio).

-What time is sunset?
-“Sunset today is at plus 14:16.” which it actually will be in Columbus, Ohio today, 11 May, because the day is 14 hours and 16 minutes long
or, equally:
-“Sunset is at 9:43 until.” because the sun sets tonight 9 hours and 43 minutes before it rises tomorrow, 12 May. The night is 9 hours and 43 minutes long.
9:43 + 14:16 = 23:59. The sunrises might be slightly off exactly 24 hours, but always by less than a minute (or so).

-What time is midday today?
-“Midday today is around plus 7 hours I think. Oh wait, let me think, I guess it’s at plus 7:08 today we just said what time sunset is duh.”

-What time do you get up?
-“I wake up at 30 until everyday.”

-What time do you go to bed?
-“I go to bed anywhere from 6:30-’til to 8:30-’til. I like to get 6-8 hours of sleep.”

-What time does work start?
-“My boss is weird. He starts work late in the summer and super-early in the winter when it’s dark and cold. It constantly shifts day-to-day. Also, one day in the spring and again in the fall, it suddenly jolts all at once by a whole hour. So disorienting, but I’ve been hearing rumors that we are going to stop doing this soon.”

This clearly begs the question, do seconds, minutes and hours make sense? Or should we be using a fraction of the sun’s path in the sky? Yes, minutes and hours still make sense, and they have been around much longer than this system of time we have now. The 24 hour day is literally older than Jesus. Hipparchus standardized the length of an hour and called it “equinoctial time.” Hours and minutes are arbitrary units, but a sun-fraction unit would mean that the unit itself changes day-to-day. We probably don’t want that.

Then what do we call the old time system that we used for ~134 years, it looks like, since about 1884? I propose that we call it “IMC Time” after the International Meridian Conference that proposed it in 1884. Or, we could just call it “Industrial Time,” because it was implemented and used in the early years of the Industrial Revolution.

Of course, we can continue to refer to the 12-hour time format with AM and PM as “Ambiguous Time,” or “Confusing and Stupid Time.”

All, Technology Implementation

Columbus Area Technology Club

About this Club

In technology, less is more, and knowledge is power.

Hi. I am Nathan Ruffing, the founder of this club. I graduated from Ohio State, Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2006. I served in the US Marines from 2007-2015. I do not work as an engineer. My friends from college are shaping the tech world in which we live. I started this club to bridge the gap between the rapidly advancing tech world and the average person. We are all tech consumers, like it or not. We can like it a lot more if we understand it.

Please understand that the goal of this club is actually “how to choose tech,” “which tech to choose,” and “how to use tech and be finished with it and move on with life.” It is not “how can I do more with tech.” Less is more!

This club is modeled off of the Tampa Bay Technology Center (in Florida). Click here for the TBTC website. My uncle is a member of the TBTC. He is in his 70s. He also happens to be the president of the homeowner’s association of his building. The club enabled him to create an informational website for his building. Click here to see the simple, effective website he learned to make from a template. You do not have to make a site. He is the most tech-savvy 70-year-old I know, but the site actually makes his management responsibilities easier and gives him more time to hang out by the beach and golf.

For now the club is free while I gage interest. One day, there may be a small fee for membership.

Future Topics

  • Your smart phone: How to keep it clean and under control.
  • Your digital camera: How to get the most from your DSLR camera. Click here for an example video.
  • Technology terminology: Internet, domain, Wi-Fi, Internet Service Provider (ISP), software, hardware, operating system, etc.
  • Your space on the internet: your own domain and basic website for ~$10 per month.
All, Comfort and Convenience Plagues, Travel

What’s Normal, We’re Not

We are truly different. Our everyday lives are different. America is more different from every other country than any other 2 countries are from each other. Here is how:

1. Consumer Culture

Goods are so abundant and cheap that producers systematically create demand with advertisements. The result is bright colors everywhere representing the well-organized system professionally designed to make us want stuff. This is so omnipresent in our culture that we don’t realize that it’s there. Our system of advertisement reaches around the globe now, and it stands out everywhere else it appears (McDonald’s, Coke, Viagra, etetera).

2. Cars

We each have one. We drive mostly alone. Carpooling is the exception. We park close when we can, pay to when we can’t. Cars are our status symbol for which we spend 6 months to 2 years up to a lifetime of income.

3. Strong Institutions and Rule Following

We trust our institutions. From the government to our universities even to our franchises and brands like Coca Cola and McDonald’s. They consistently tax us, educate us, make our favorite treats, always convenient parking, meet and exceed minimum service standards, and a free bathroom when you need it.

We trust institutions over people. We will invest our life savings in a faceless stock in the stock market, but are much more hesitant to invest in a local business whose owner we actually know.

We stop for traffic lights with nobody around. We pay our taxes. Corruption surprises us. The roads are straight, fast, aligned at perfect right angles. We drink alcohol in specific regulated places at specific times. Next time you walk down the sidewalk in Las Vegas and think it’s cool that you can carry a beer with you, remember, that’s the only thing really normal about Vegas!

Some of these things seem unrelated, but I don’t think so. We are unique in having a mostly stable government that is older than the population, and we accept its authority. Most of us arrived since the constitution was adopted in 1789. Name another country in the world whose current government is older than its people. Egypt or China? Mexico? No. No. No. Any South American country? No. Some theocracy? No, not like us.

4. Sugar as a Food Group

You notice it in the people immediately upon arrival at a US airport.

5. Security

You probably won’t be robbed at a US airport, bus station, or in most public spaces. America has never been invaded. We expect security. We expect our government to counter threats, and it does.

6. Air Conditioning

We don’t just air condition for some comfort and relief. We refrigerate our spaces. Nowhere else in the world I have ever been can afford to do this, or has buildings air-tight enough for it.

7. Television

 

For better or worse, our lives are different. We adapt everyday. Adaptation is so ubiquitous we aren’t even aware of it. We are living an experiment from which came many of the greatest improvements in our lives, … but it is an experiment. It has not run its course. The US accounts for just 6.6% of the land area of the world. It has been less than 200 years since the industrial revolution, out of more than 1 million years of human history. As a population, as a culture, we are shocked, adjusting, and changing. We will not live to see the conclusion. The only thing known so far is that we are not normal.

I live in the US, but mostly without the things on that list. It is liberating to at least identify the ways in which we are different. They are the stressors in our lives. To see people shop as a hobby, drive, follow conventions, sip sugar water, follow years’ and decades’ worth of TV series, and refrigerate their living space is like stepping into a hyper-modern future world. You might think I’m crazy, but the reality is: we are.

When I arrived in Germany in December 2008 to backpack for 2 weeks, my first time leaving the country, I was shocked at how un-shocking things were. People were people, living like people. No big deal. I arrived in Afghanistan in January 2011 for a deployment. I remember that of course, but the adjustment there mostly involved the job to do. After a half year there, the real shock was returning home. The colors! The information! Options! What to do?! That returning home shock doesn’t seem to wear off. I have left the country for 6+ months 5 separate times now, to Afghanistan, Japan, and Brazil. Each time I return, I am shocked by how shocking it is to come home.

Over the last year or so, I have spent a lot of time listening to history lectures from the Greeks through today (I recommend The Great Courses, available on Audible, they are awesome). I started with world history for a while, then recently listened to 2 sets of lectures on American history. The shock is the same when learning about history. There is no precedent for America, neither from distant continents, nor from the distant past. America is America. It stands alone.

America is different. America is far from normal. Travel. Travel anywhere in the world, and when you see normal for the first time, remember that you are seeing normal outside the US. Only when you return will you see what is truly remarkable and special. America.

All, To Blog

Breaking News! Barrier to Information Dissemination Drops to Zero

3 Comments

Why am I writing this? More importantly, why are you reading? More importantly, how is it that I can publish something that the entire world can read instantly and for free? This is possible because the internet went public 25 years ago on 6 August 1991. Yes, 25 years ago, but it is still a huge deal–huge–and it may be just now ramping up. Is it breaking news? Yes! Every day of our lives.

I took European history as an AP class in high school, and I could hardly have found it more boring. I specifically remember being taught what a huge deal the “Gutenberg Press” was. I happened to believe that the Gutenberg Press was the single most boring invention or event I’d ever heard of. No longer! By a combination of The Great Courses lectures and learning my own family history, I am a history convert and an enthusiastic believer that the Gutenberg Press matters to us because of its analogous relationship to the internet.

History repeats itself, but you have to know which history to look at. We should look at the Gutenberg Press as the most pertinent historical event for us today because the internet is the modern-day acceleration of what the Gutenberg Press started 550 years before it.

The Gutenberg Press was a big deal because it enabled the rapid dissemination of information. It greatly lowered the barrier to producing copies of ideas. Instead of requiring a team of monks to copy books by hand one word at a time, you could stamp out pages by the hundreds. Before the press, copying was extremely slow, after the press, several orders of magnitude faster, but you still needed a printing press and employees, or later an antenna and a license to broadcast by radio or television, or a copy machine and some kind of network to disseminate the paper. From the press and employees to an antenna and broadcast license, these were all things that only organizations and businesses had, so there was still a barrier. However, beginning in August of 1991, that requirement dropped to zero. Literally anybody with internet access–free at your public library–can publish an idea and give instant access to most of the world within seconds and at a ridiculously low cost of less than $70 per year for a website. Twitter, Facebook, and all social media that matters is free. TV networks actually report what social media says, not the other way around.

What does it mean? It means that both the printing press and the internet are a big deal, and a big deal for the same reason. Therefore, some of their effects on society will be analogous. If you want to read history that is pertinent to today, a good target year is somewhere between 1440 and 1648–plus or minus of course.

The internet went public 25 years ago, and 1465 was 25 years after the printing press was invented, so you might say 1465 is the best year to look at, but things happen faster today. I would argue that we’re past 1465. Did the average peasant even know about the press in 1465? Probably not. Maybe they had seen a printed Bible at church by that time or heard some rumors. By contrast, an estimated 40% of the world’s population is already using the internet.

1648 was 208 years after the invention of the press, and by that time, the protestant movement was established, and The Thirty Years’ War had concluded, the largest conflict that can be directly connected to the invention of the printing press. The Thirty Years’ War involved all the major European powers, resulted in the fracture of the Catholic Church, established an entire new category of religion, and an estimated 8 million people died.

Back to what made this interesting to me in the very first place. Let’s have a quick conversation with my great x 9 grandfather, Michael Rouffin, in Bexbach, Germany in 1655 when he was 20 years old (in German of course, and I made some of this up).

“So Nine-Great Grandpa, that’s a nice wooden-covered Bible you have displayed on the table there.”

“Yes. I’m the first in my family to own one. It was given to me by the church as a gift when I came here to Bexbach.”

“Why did you move to Bexbach? Was there a problem in Rouffin where you’re from?”

“No. The problem was here in Bexbach. Most of the men in this town were killed in the war. Bexbach and the surrounding towns were decimated. I was summoned here by the landlord to replace them and farm the land and repopulate the town.”

“What do you think of the war and these new religions that have established themselves?”

“I don’t know. It sure is a crazy world these days though.”

Boy, was he right! Sound familiar? It was a time of extreme knowledge increase, and extreme upheaval.

That’s all I have. I have to read more history…

All, To Blog

To Blog or Not to Blog?

4 Comments

That is the question.

In this my third year of “blogging,” I have decided that it’s time to discuss “blogging” itself. I have had a website since summer 2013 when my friend Biff showed me how easy it is to do. Most of you have probably not ever blogged and view bloggers as self-absorbed blabber-mouths with an inflated sense of their own importance. Well, actually, maybe you don’t–but that’s how I felt, and so I assumed others felt that way, and that is where I started two and a half years ago…

When I wrote my first post, I can remember clicking the little “Publish” button and waiting for this imaginary something to happen because I had simultaneously spoken to the entire world all at once. I felt like the collective criticism of the world was going to descend upon me and laugh me off the face of the earth. I called my brother and some friends to look at my post just to get some feedback because the anticipation was killing me. Instead of something cataclysmic, nothing happened. I found not only had I not spoken to the entire world all at once, but hardly anyone noticed. This is bad for someone trying to get hits on his website, but for me, I was relieved, and as time went by, I found that I felt more and more free to write what I want and click that “Publish” button. I have come to the point where I enjoy having my website and it has proven very useful. To take it one step further, I will go so far as to say that if you use the internet, you too should blog!–or at least dabble in blogging, or at least have a simple site. The following is why.

  1. A website gives you elbow room on the internet. Let’s face it, these days we all spend some time on the internet. Even those stubborn technophobic Facebook hold-outs who just got a smart phone use the internet. So wouldn’t it be nice to have some of your own space here? “It’s just virtual space!” you say. Yes. Correct. It’s just a virtual internet too, but you’re on it. It must have some value. Own, don’t be a lifetime renter. Having your own personal space, that elbow room, allows you to direct your information seeking efforts so you don’t get lost in the black hole that leads to the end of the internets. If nothing else, you can set up a page with a list of your favorite links as a starting point when getting your news from the internet. Click the link. I do just that with my website.
  2. Having a website gives you a behind-the-scenes perspective on the internet. Ever watch the “behind-the-scenes” of the making of a movie? Seeing it changes how you perceive the movie and you understand it better. Producing video gives you some perspective on what is possible in movies and video production. The same applies to internet information. Once you produce information on the internet you realize how easy it is and impresses upon you the importance of screening the information. Anybody can do it! There is a whole bunch of junk information out there – especially on the internet – and you are much better equipped at recognizing it if you supply some of the junk yourself! I do. Click the link and buy something, dang it!
  3. Blogging gives you a voice. Have you ever played a game where you aren’t allowed to speak for an extended period of time? It’s frustrating, right? Have you ever been frustrated by the stupid things people say in public forums? “I heard so-and-so said such-and-such on Twitter. What an idiot!” Twitter user or not, you’ve seen tweets. You can’t stop them. Twitter is free. You can’t escape them. Tweets are part of the news these days. Don’t fall into the trap of helpless frustration! Believe me, no matter how many followers one has, they are frustrated too. Dear Twitter Idiot, a million people may have read your tweet, but it still only took those million people 10 seconds to read your 140 characters, and they moved on to the next tweet with little more than a nagging feeling of neglect that you didn’t even bother to use punctuation when speaking to millions of people. Dear Frustrated Mute Listener, find your voice! Blabber on! Look no further for an example. This is me blabbering right here! Look! An excessive exclamation point! Where? Right there! You can too. If you are my friend, I will even go out of my way to read and promote your unlimited characters, but you have to take that first step.
  4. You can use your blog to discuss with your friends more efficiently. Whenever I research a subject, I write my conclusion in a post instead of just an e-mail. That way when the subject comes up again, I send the link to my conclusion! You systemize your discussions! Yes, I really do this and it is fun.
  5. A website is an efficient way to communicate and organize. I used my site for an event over Thanksgiving, and it worked great. Facebook works too, and so does group e-mail, but a website has an advantage over each. With a site, you can adjust it after sending the link, which you can’t do with a group e-mail. Some people do not have Facebook, and you can reach those people as well. You definitely want to be able to reach the Facebook hold-outs, they are the coolest people out there. Just ask them!
  6. Those from the pre-internet days will say we don’t know anything, we just know how to search fast. People say we have off-loaded our brains to the internet. We have transferred memory itself to computers. I agree. It is truly amazing how much information one can take in. Even more amazing, with a blog, you can hyper-organize the information. With the internet, our brains can become an index of searches. With a blog, you don’t even need to do that. You can become an index to the table of contents of your own cross reference to all information known to man – the internet. Most importantly, with a blog you can quickly reference only the specific information you have deemed quality.
  7. The internet can be compared to real estate. Many people will say that blogs are out of date and you will not get any traffic. You should use established places like LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, et cetera. It is true that you will get more traffic in these established places. They are like a store front in a mall. There is naturally traffic passing by. With a blog you must generate your own traffic organically. However! Space on the internet is like real estate. With a blog you own the space and you own the traffic. You control how your content is displayed and in the event that you do generate traffic, you own the advertising rights. If you are already producing content in any other place you should blog it first then copy paste it to the other established formats. Own your content!
  8. Last and certainly not least, blogging is a journal. Maybe you want to sit down for a few minutes each day / week / month and reflect. Journaling is a timeless activity. I argue that blogging is an improvement on journaling. Journaling is for hermits. In a journal, you may write some of your deepest secrets feeling the security that nobody will ever read it. How do we know that people write secrets in their journal? Because they wrote them down and somebody found their journal and read them, duh! With blogging, hopefully you’re smart enough not to publish your deepest secrets (I don’t recommend drinking and blogging, bad idea). Blogging is journaling with 3.26 billion of your closest friends keeping you honest. There is an imaginary force of motivation knowing that someone might be reading that keeps you to your routine of a few minutes of writing. So thanks for keeping me honest. The best is when somebody in real life tells you he has read your blog and makes some comment on it. It’s kind of a rush. It’s like a tiny piece of that tidal wave of criticism that you felt on day one–but not criticism at all–and you become a little less self-conscious, and a little more bold each time.

To blog! That is the answer.

All, Comfort and Convenience Plagues, Nate TV

Nielsen Survey

1 Comment

I was recently solicited to participate in a Nielsen household TV survey. They have a unique way of enticing participation. The first envelope has a lot of explanatory material and a request to participate, as well as–without explanation–$5 cash, a single five-dollar bill. I agreed to participate, so after a few weeks they sent me a second envelope with a “TV Viewing Diary” to be filled out in detail for two weeks; and again the cash–this time the envelope contained six five-dollar bills, $30 cash! I spent the fives on groceries, filled out the TV viewing diary (blank because I don’t watch), and took their TV survey. Now, like Pavlov’s dogs, I am expecting a thank you letter with more cash. I can’t wait to hear from Nielsen again!

At the end of the diary, Nielsen leaves space and asks you to “comment on TV in general.” This is my response:

Except for about two years in the middle, I haven’t had TV in my house since 2003 (for two years my roommates had one). At first I felt like I was missing something and like I didn’t know what was going on. After a few months, I no longer missed it and I gathered from conversations at work and with friends what was in the news and what was going on in various shows. After a few years, I started having the opinion that TV actually prevents people from really knowing what’s going on. I hear conversations about current shows and it’s all sensationalized fantasy.  People’s world view from the news is this chaotic, scary place, when really the world, for the most part, is fairly well-off, happy, and stable. When I see TV now, much of it is shocking and some of it is offensive. I do miss sports and ESPN. I watch ESPN
whenever I can! -Nathan Ruffing