Russ Nelson

"Corruption"? What does that mean, anyway? To my mind, it is people who have been tasked with a job, but they are not doing it. Instead, they are doing something which benefits them, rather than their employer. When this is discovered at a private company, the person gets fired. When a politician is corrupt, it's harder to do. Sometimes their corruption helps a powerful person, and they lend their power to keep the politician in office.

My feeling is that corruption in the face of power is inevitable. As Lord Acton said, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." These days, the politicians in Washington have absolute power. The only check on their power is other political entities: the executive, the judiciary, or the legislative.

I want to fire these politicians ... permanently. I want Washington to go back to being the foggy bottom where nobody wants to live year-round. I want political power to devolve from the monopoly government in Washington, and return to the competing governments in Albany, Salem, Montpelier, Sacramento, Trenton, etc.

The problem is not the corruption. The problem is that the only control that people have over Washington is voting, and it's a very infrequent and uncertain control. At the state level, people can (and do -- New York State has the highest taxes and is losing population) vote with their feet.

Politicians will always be corrupt, as long as they have power without oversight (and voting doesn't provide enough oversight -- the option of exit does).

An article by Kenton Williston in EE Times suggests that the issues of Global Warming and Intelligent Design are comparable. He says that you need faith that the facts are wrong to support Intelligent Design and to oppose Global Warming, and that there is no place for such faith in the field of Electrical Engineering. So, he's disturbed to find out that not every EE agrees with him.

The trouble with his posting is that global warming is primarily an issue of economics. What decisions we make depends on the costs we face. After all if global warming posed no risks, no costs of adjustment, no changes in lifestyle, who would care whether it was happening or not. But some people claim that we must pay huge costs now, or suffer much larger costs later. So, to get the correct answer on what to do about global warming, you must consult economists.

As it turns out, doing nothing about global warming isn't all that expensive relative to the alternatives. It's possible that some new technologies will be created which help us control CO2 emissions cheaply. If so, we should adopt them. Otherwise, steps like the Kyoto Accord cost so much now in return for such small benefits so far in the future, that they are no better than doing nothing.

Now, I happen to be of the belief that the climate has been changing all the time; that those changes are visible in recorded human history; that they have been going on long before humans were burning more than campfires; and that they are unstoppable. All that we can do is to adjust to them. So, if we're warming the global a little more with our CO2 emissions, it's just a small addition to the cost that we are going to have to pay regardless.

Sure, low-lying areas will become inundated, just as the areas just off shore were inundated thousands of years ago. Atlantis is not just a possibility, it's a likelihood. Perhaps the story of Atlantis was meant as a cautionary tale: don't build so close to the sea because the sea level changes.

If we squander huge sums on reducing CO2, only to find that the globe was always going to warm up, how faithful will Kenton look then? Better to stick with the science of global warming:

• We know man has been emitting CO2.
• We know that CO2 warms the globe.
• We know that the globe is warming anyway.

Freeman Dyson reviewed two books on global warming for the New York Times. As a side comment, he offered this:

All the books that I have seen about the science and economics of global warming, including the two books under review, miss the main point. The main point is religious rather than scientific. There is a worldwide secular religion which we may call environmentalism, holding that we are stewards of the earth, that despoiling the planet with waste products of our luxurious living is a sin, and that the path of righteousness is to live as frugally as possible. The ethics of environmentalism are being taught to children in kindergartens, schools, and colleges all over the world.

Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion. And the ethics of environmentalism are fundamentally sound. Scientists and economists can agree with Buddhist monks and Christian activists that ruthless destruction of natural habitats is evil and careful preservation of birds and butterflies is good. The worldwide community of environmentalists—most of whom are not scientists—holds the moral high ground, and is guiding human societies toward a hopeful future. Environmentalism, as a religion of hope and respect for nature, is here to stay. This is a religion that we can all share, whether or not we believe that global warming is harmful.

Unfortunately, some members of the environmental movement have also adopted as an article of faith the belief that global warming is the greatest threat to the ecology of our planet. That is one reason why the arguments about global warming have become bitter and passionate. Much of the public has come to believe that anyone who is skeptical about the dangers of global warming is an enemy of the environment. The skeptics now have the difficult task of convincing the public that the opposite is true. Many of the skeptics are passionate environmentalists. They are horrified to see the obsession with global warming distracting public attention from what they see as more serious and more immediate dangers to the planet, including problems of nuclear weaponry, environmental degradation, and social injustice. Whether they turn out to be right or wrong, their arguments on these issues deserve to be heard.

I've realized why I'm so hostile to environmentalists, e.g. on bottled water. It is because I see the Religious Society of Friends being corrupted by this secular religion of environmentalism. "Thou Shalt Place No Gods Before Me": not just good advice, it's a requirement.

Hate Obama Now, Avoid the Rush.

By which I mean that I expect Barack Obama to become president, try to solve problems, fail, and be majorly disliked by nearly everyone. If I thought John McCain was going to win, I would have said "Hate McCain Now, Avoid the Rush." Because, you see, we put impossible pressures on our presidents. We expect them to be able to act like dictators, solving problems left and right, writing executive orders, and generally cutting a swathe through everyone's favorite problem.

If ever a man has the power to do great good, he could also use it to do great evil. That is reason enough to deny anybody that much power.

11.39 km 37365.47 feet 7.08 mi

A short ride today; only 7 miles. We carpooled up to the Staple Bend tunnel, and rode out, through, and back. Nobody got too creeped out about going through the tunnel.

This week, I rode 108 miles. The workshop short rides added up to 56 miles.

20.36 km 66795.54 feet 12.65 mi 7027.00 seconds 117.12 minutes 1.95 hours 6.48 mi/hr

Today, we did ride all the way to Salix, turned right, and back through the ever-present Elton.

12.83 km 42107.35 feet 7.97 mi 5224.00 seconds 87.07 minutes 1.45 hours 5.50 mi/hr

Rode out to see the Staple Bend Tunnel. Also rode back on the Path of the Flood Trail, but ran out of time and had to turn back.

18.26 km 59895.78 feet 11.34 mi 6034.00 seconds 100.57 minutes 1.68 hours 6.77 mi/hr

Went out past Elton again and most of the way to Salix, taking a side road loop part-way to Dunlo.

42.60 km 139765.77 feet 26.47 mi 13227.00 seconds 220.45 minutes 3.67 hours 7.20 mi/hr

Tuesday afternoon, Beth Burbank and I rode on the Ghost Town Trail, from Ebensburg west to Vintondale and Emily Furnace. It was 13.2 miles downhill, followed by 13.2 miles uphill. Funny, we hadn't noticed the grade of the hill as we were riding down it. At Ebensburg, the elevation is 2020 feet, and in Vintondale, it's 1400 feet. Noticed a few abandoned sidings on the way, and with more time I would have liked to examine them.

17.73 km 58165.25 feet 11.02 mi 6045.00 seconds 100.75 minutes 1.68 hours 6.56 mi/hr

Headed straight to Elton, did a big loop ending a few hundred feet from our exit from Elton, and back to campus. Elton figures prominently in these rides because there are six roads coming together all within a few hundred feet.

15.51 km 50897.05 feet 9.64 mi 5737.00 seconds 95.62 minutes 1.59 hours 6.05 mi/hr

I rode the short ride this week, mostly because I worry more about them, but also because I'm not the fastest rider. I'm sure that I could ride with the group doing the long ride more slowly, but I'd be worried even more about the short ride in my absence.

We went out to Scalp Level down Eisenhower Rd., which starts at 2220 feet, and ends at 2000 feet within about a third of a mile, which is a 12.5% grade, or 1 in 8. Then we headed down a pretty country lane to 160, up a few hundred feet into Elton, and back to campus.

7.47 km 24493.83 feet 4.64 mi 2675.00 seconds 44.58 minutes 0.74 hours 6.24 mi/hr

The workshop is only 1h30m long on Sunday because of First Day worship, so the ride is correspondingly short. We just went out to 756 and around the block.

28.03 km 91964.79 feet 17.42 mi 7641.00 seconds 127.35 minutes 2.12 hours 8.21 mi/hr

Today is the Saturday before the Quaker Gathering. Since I'm leading the bicycling workshop, I want to ride one of the worst possible rides, to see how bad it is. This one has a wicked downhill, followed by another wicked downhill, followed by a town ride through Windber and then a long slog uphill.

I did it, no problem, so my workshop attendees (at least the long ride) can do it, too. My only concern is the Advanced Cutting Systems plant on that road. It's still being built, and it's right next to the road, so I fear that there will be more traffic during the week.

18.68 km 61282.89 feet 11.61 mi 4199.00 seconds 69.98 minutes 1.17 hours 9.95 mi/hr

Rode into town for a chiro appointment.

11.85 km 38890.47 feet 7.37 mi 1935.00 seconds 32.25 minutes 0.54 hours 13.70 mi/hr

I rode this two weeks ago and didn't record it until now. Just a standard ride, before heading out to Tai Chi class.

In a free market, over time, competition in the production of a commodity product will eliminate all profits. Bread-makers can sell their bread for enough money to cover the cost of the capital invested in the bakery, the cost of the flour, yeast, sugar, and water, the fuel needed for firing, and the salary of the baker. They can earn no more money than that. If they did, then another bakery would be established which would price its products lower, splitting that profit between the customer and the owner of the new bakery.

In order to earn a profit, you need to do something special (called a franchise). This could have several forms: you could create something new that nobody else has. You could have an exclusive territory assigned to you (as in the traditional franchise, such as McDonald's etc). You could have help from the government, in the form of a patent or copyright. Or you could have a professional certification, such as a law or medical degree, without which one is prohibited from practice -- and possession of which is controlled by other lawyers and doctors who are sure not to give out too many.

In the case of software development, you can copyright and/or patent your software (although it's dodgy that both apply, since the theory is that they can't both be used on the same work). Or, you can write your software in such a way that it is inextricably tied to a piece of hardware which only you sell. Or you can develop an expertise with a piece of software which nobody else can or will reproduce.

Or you can simply not worry about getting a franchise because you know that only certain types of people have the ability to program. If true (and I believe it to be true) then programmers will forever command higher than usual salaries. And the more demand for programmers, the better-off will be programmers. And the more use of software, the more demand for programmers. And the less expensive is software, the more wide will be the use of it.

Every process is a mix of inputs. The ratio of inputs depends on the cost of these inputs. The process gets changed over time to handle the varying cost of the inputs. If one of them becomes cheaper, it becomes a larger factor in the production.

I believe that there is sufficient evidence to say that Open Source and free software lowers the cost of production of software, and hence will ineluctibly raise the salary of programmers, even as these programmers give away more and more of their software.

All of this, of course, is in complete opposition to Stallman's GNU Manifesto. He attempts to rebut objections to GNU's goals. He repeatedly makes the claim that free software will reduce programmer's pay. I claim otherwise. Hopefully Stallman has changed his mind.

There seem to be multiple campaigns to "cut poverty in half". I'm whopperjawed. How do you cut poverty in half? Lower the poverty level so that only half the people fall below it? Take money from rich people and give it to poor people so half of the people below the poverty level have incomes above the poverty level? Or do you ignore the poverty level completely and simply make everybody poorer so that you can't tell who is poor and who is merely middle class? Or do you simply cut poverty in half and not worry about the details?

There is absolute poverty and relative poverty. For absolute poverty, we can say "If you don't have X, you are poor." Then, with an appropriate list of X (e.g. clean running water, indoor toilets, 1200 calories per day, clothes that are frequently washed, etc etc) then when we have reduced the number of people without X in half, we have halved poverty. That's great! It's a possible and worthy goal. We can even decide as a society to make some people poor again by redefining X, and then getting X to them. Clearly you can half poverty again and again and again. In time, you can eliminate poverty (although I suspect that the MOGW's would simply add things to X, because if poverty went away, the MOGW's would have nothing to do.)

For relative poverty, it is impossible to get rid of poverty. As long as one person works harder than another person, they will have more. As long as work is rewarded with wealth, they will have more. With relative poverty, as long as there are any rich, there will be poor. Whenever people try to measure poverty using a relative scale, or they speak of inequality, you can be sure that they mean to eliminate poverty by eliminating the rich.

Unfortunately, eliminating the rich means eliminating prosperity. It is not for our good health that the rich labor. It is for their own. The fact that free markets require them to help other people is not an argument against the rich, as Keynes would have it, but is instead an argument against controlling markets in an effort to improve them.

The problem with trying to control markets is that they are too complicated to improve. When you try to improve markets, you only make them worse, because you do not have, and cannot get, the information necessary to steer the market beyond the transactions you yourself make in the market.

Unions are big businesses which seek to gain a monopoly in sales over a commodity (labor). As such, I completely fail to see why they should have even a gnat's breadth of help from the government in the marketplace. And yet they do. For example, in New York State, some groups are subject to hiring standards. These include paying "the prevailing wage", which always means the union wage. Of course, if you have to pay union wages, you may as well hire a union member, because, well, that's a nice business you've got, and you wouldn't want any accidents to happen to it, would you?

George Carlin passed away today. He was an amazingly funny storyteller and observer of life. At one point in my teens I had several of his sketches memorized. Well, not exactly memorized, as that would imply that I had put effort into trying to remember them. It was more that the cassette tapes were starting to wear out from the playing and replaying.

UPDATE: George Carlin didn't pass away. He FUCKING DIED! Ahem.

51.88 km 170201.60 feet 32.24 mi 13257.00 seconds 220.95 minutes 3.68 hours 8.75 mi/hr

Went for an odd sort of bike ride today. I rode with Hank Walther on his RailRider. It's a quadcycle (four wheels) with rail wheels rather than road wheels, and it's built to standard gauge. So, with permission of the Upper Hudson River Railroad general manager, Cliff Wells, we rode from Riparius Station (currently the southern-most end of their excursion trains) south to Thurman Station (which is currently just a siding and wheelchair ramp, as the station itself has been gone for some time).

Hank and the RailRider:

Not only was it an odd bike, but Hank added an electric motor to it, so we were able to cruise along at speeds up to 22 mph without pedaling one bit.

Various environmentalistsidiots are opining about the harmfulness of bottled water to the environment. Unfortunately, in a democracy, even idiots get to open their trap. Go read that article. It won't convince you of anything you didn't know already. Perhaps some people drink bottled water for the reasons they cavail against. There are other reasons for preferring the services that come with bottled water.

The real problem here is that environmentalists don't understand that NOBODY sets out to harm the environment. Nobody wakes up thinking "yeah, I'm gonna go destroy some environment today." People do destroy various bits of the environment every day. So do animals, and in a non-sustainable way, too. Deer will eat themselves out of food.

Instead, people want services, services which inevitably end up destroying a part of the environment. People value these services more than the cost of the destroyed environment. Just as environmentalists are free to whine about how awful everyone is (not including themselves of course, even though they also prefer services to a perfectly protected environment), so, too, are people free to buy these services.

29.32 km 96195.19 feet 18.22 mi 5643.00 seconds 94.05 minutes 1.57 hours 11.62 mi/hr

Rode up to Norfolk again. Went straight up Rt. 56 -- not the most pleasant highway riding in the world, but far from the worst. Rode past the Barrett gravel mine, and noticed some center-dump cars sitting on the old railroad tracks. Those tracks used to cross the road, but many years ago during one repaving project or another the rails were ripped up away from the highway. Now they're back. I looked closer at them, and they were actually relaid closer to the highway ... using 110 pound rail. The old rails are like 70 pound rails, much shorter. They look like a dachsund and a great dane mating. The wonder is not that it can be done, but that anyone would attempt it.

Walked back along the tracks a ways, and found that the two sidings visible on the 7.5' topo map are still in place. Also found that the New York & Ogdensburg Railroad had replaced a bunch of ties. They just left the old ones where the equipment pulled it out. Gotta go back and take pictures.

Went east on Adams Road in Norfolk, to catch up with Old Market Road. Did so, but also rode past it to look at the Brothers Lumber yard where a railroad siding used to go. The only things I found were the embankment for the railroad going through a wetland, and a strange concrete structure at what must have been the tail end of the track. It has a tunnel going through it, which I would have thought might be a place for a truck to go under the tracks and get filled from a center dump car, but there's no hole in the roof. I'll take pictures and ask around. Now I'm curious!

25.81 km 84675.93 feet 16.04 mi 5146.00 seconds 85.77 minutes 1.43 hours 11.22 mi/hr

Went down my favorite pair of disused roads. They're still in drivable condition, except for the trees that fell in the storm yesterday. Gonna take some serious chainsawing to open them up again.

Looking for a way to understand global warming in just one sentence? Try this one on for size:

I find no value in any mention of human-caused CO2 global warming when there is no corresponding mention of the 2-3 degree 1500 year +-500 warming / cooling cycle.

Or, its more succinct version:

A fart on a farm isn't noticable.

40.16 km 131754.87 feet 24.95 mi 9151.00 seconds 152.52 minutes 2.54 hours 9.82 mi/hr

According to my GPS receiver, I went 25.2 miles. It doesn't record every point in the track, but it uses every point to calculate distance. Anyway, I had a nice trip. Went to find an old road I've been wanting to travel on for a few decades. It goes between River Road and Lime Hollow Road. Looks like it might be drivable in a car, but it isn't. The ruts are too deep. A tractor could, and a tractor has, gone down it lately.

Lime Hollow Road has at least three thriving Amish farms on it. Of course, being a Sunday, they were just sitting around, enjoying the day. Just past the first one is Ekey Road. I went west on it a little ways, just to see where it went. Answer: not far, then it becomes a sandy track. I don't know if it goes through or not. It looks like the bridge on the far end, at Dixon Corners, crossing Trout Brook, is still there. I'll check it out one of these days. Today was too hot (in the 90's) to do that.

Came back via the Rutland Trail. Boy, it's getting awfully rooty. Have to figure out how to get the roots out, otherwise some snowmobiler is going to get killed, like happened over in Franklin County a few years ago. Got his front ski caught under a root, the sled flipped, and threw him into a tree.

28.49 km 93486.46 feet 17.71 mi 6066.00 seconds 101.10 minutes 1.69 hours 10.51 mi/hr

Went around Norwood Pond and up to Norfolk, to see what's up there. Noticed that Vermont Railway Systems has been busy with their New York and Ogdensburg Railroad. They built a concrete pad with a depressed area in the middle, over the old main headed up to Waddington. They've got a bulk loader sticking out of the bottom of it. Not obvious what they were off-loading, but the flies sure loved it.

They used to have a car construction shed, with two tracks. Now the tracks are gone and there are new large doors on them. Nice buildings, for certain purposes.

They've moved their Jordan Spreader plow off the siding near the old depot, and have removed the tracks from the siding. Maybe they'll remove the switch next? They also have a "hyrail" brush cutter, which looks like it's got the equivalent to two bush hogs for cutting outside the grade. I didn't see if they had any way to cut inside the grade.

Came back from Norfolk through Knapps Station.

Our lawmakers are saving us from reality yet again. I guess that means that they live in a fantasy world where bad things never happen and resources are never scarce (but given that they can raise taxes at will their resources are never scarce). Assemblyman Lafayette is one of them:

Lafayette's Price Gouging Statute Must be Strictly Enforced

When hurricanes strike, when floods, fire or ice storms ravage neighborhoods, a few unscrupulous businesses take advantage of vulnerable people by skyrocketing prices of essential consumer goods to make large profits. This was why Lafayette authored Chapter 510 of the laws of 1998, which strengthened the price gouging statute.

The huge increases in gasoline prices have a high profile with sometimes twice daily increases. But, let’s not forget about heating oil, natural gas and electricity.

The law originally stipulated that only retailers could be held accountable for gouging the price of consumer goods during times of crisis. Lafayette made the law more expansive to prohibit price gouging by any party within the chain of distribution of consumer goods including manufacturers, suppliers, wholesalers, distributors and retailers.

Unfortunately, there are some businesses who will increase the cost of essential consumer goods in times of crisis for their own benefit. When gasoline prices are at their highest levels in history and oil companies are reporting record profits, it raises a red flag. These companies, along with their suppliers and distributors, must be investigated to determine if there is any wrongdoing.

Price gouging is not an uncommon practice. It has occurred in New York City during previous hurricanes and floods. This law provides broad authority for the Attorney General to investigate businesses that may take advantage of vulnerable people. Lafayette believes that people need to be punished accordingly and the way to do this is to utilize this more encompassing law that works.

Now they're raising the fine for price gouging from $10,000 to $25,000 plus restitution, when they should be eliminating the fine and restitution entirely.

In a crisis, certain resources are scarce. They shouldn't be wasted, and they should go to the people who put the most value on them. The best way to discover who these people are, in a free-market society like America, is to let the price of the resource float. The people who have the highest use will be willing to pay the highest price.

This has several pleasant effects: first, it rewards people who have the good sense to keep these resources in stock, available for other people to use when the crisis hits. Second, it encourages other people to work really really hard to increase the supply of this scarce resource, because they know they'll be rewarded by high profits. Third, the higher the profit, the more the resource will flow into the area where it's badly needed, and the sooner the price will drop down to normal levels.

Instead of allowing gouging and its pleasant effects, our idiotslawmakers are doing their best to eliminate these pleasant effects, and ensure that the pain of a crisis lasts as long as possible.

Frigging morons.

It has come to my attention that there are some people running around, falsely calling themselves Russ or Russell Nelson. Do not be fooled! Accept only the genuine article! I am the One True Russ Nelson, forever and always the first and the best.

Food is more important to your health than anything a doctor can do for you. Why don't we have a food insurance program?

Answer: because it would obviously be stupid. Now ... defend the health insurance system.

I didn't think you could. The reason we have employer-paid health insurance can be traced back to WWII wage and price controls. Desirable workers could not be paid more, but you could give them free health care. Employers did, and didn't stop when the wage controls went away.

Now we're stuck in the ridiculous situation of treating people like cars, doctors like car mechanics, and insurance companies like car owners. The car has no say in how much maintenance it gets, nor how much that maintenance costs. Consequently, it demands the best maintenance, price be damned. Any wonder that lots of people can't afford health care unless it's paid for by someone else?

Health care should be cheap and readily available, like food.

26.48 km 86878.17 feet 16.45 mi 9664.00 seconds 161.07 minutes 2.68 hours 6.13 mi/hr

Went in the direction of West Potsdam to visit my friend Bill Mackently.

Chinese companies are starting to realize that their brand name is "Chinese", and that their brand is no better than the worse of their competitors. When one "Chinese" product contains lead, all "Chinese" products are equally harmed. Expect more Chinese companies to start pushing their brand names, as a way of standing behind the quality of their products.

Paul Osman wrote a letter to the Nature Conservancy, published in their Summer 2008 magazine. In order to maximize his shame and embarrassment, I will reproduce the letter in whole:

The "experts" missed the point in "The Poverty Question." The real debate should not be how to bring other people's standard of living up to our own; it should be how to reduce our own standard of living.

For most people reading the glossy pages of your magazine (in a home full of unessential luxuries), it is very easy to critique the Africal boy cooking a monkey over a small, open fire ("Dispatch"). However, his overall impact on the environment is a very, very small percentage of our own. We, not the world's poor, are the problem.

Bringing the world's poor up to our standard of gluttony will only result in the complete and total destruction of the environment. The debate should be how to reduce our gluttony and make us more like them.

Regardless of the correctness of his issue or not, the Nature Conservancy really would like to be in a position where it can act to preserve critical habitat in countries where poor people have political clout, e.g. India. For a fucking certified idiot like this to express his opinion in the Nature Conservancy's official journal is complete stupidity. THESE PEOPLE READ, YOU KNOW. And it's very, very unlikely that they view their own poverty as something to be desired. They're likely to tie the Nature Conservancy together with this idiot's opinion.

As for the issue itself, if the Osman-Idiot wants to reduce his own standard of living, nobody is stopping him. Voluntary poverty has a long history among the self-righteous. For myself, I plan to be self-wrongteous, and will continue to try to help everyone on God's green earth to become as wealthy as I.

Apparently no cost is too high to protect the environment. You know those little inhalers that asthmatics use to STOP FROM DYING? They are powered by compressed CFC gasses. Apparently these environmentalist fuckers feel that asthmatics should fuck off and die. Because, you see, the replacement for CFCs, HFAs, doesn't work as well. They will taste and feel different. The spray may feel soft. Each must be primed and cleaned in a specific way to prevent clogs (this is the serious one). And they tend to cost more.

These people disgust me.

The F.X. Matt brewery in Utica, NY, suffered a fire on Thursday. It's a serious problem for them because it's their canning operation. They presumably have insurance, but of course the problem is that they can't sell any product until they rebuild. This is going to be hard for them, but they will recover.

Unfortunately, you also have these assholes sticking their noses in:

Gov. David Paterson's office and the Empire State Development agency are already pledging aid. The Oneida County executive, state legislators and Utica's mayor also talked Thursday night of finding ways to assist F. X. Matt recover and rebuild.

This is mercantilism! This is BAD, folks! Governments don't know how to run businesses. They don't know this because they get paid by taxpayers. Taxpayers MUST pay their taxes regardless of whether they like the government or not. Their only alternative is to leave. Voting against taxes is ineffectual. We voted down the school budget for next year, and yet the State of New York allows them to run with a provisional budget ANYWAY in spite of the voter's preferences.

F.X. Matt will rebuild. Government will help them. But don't confuse this with capitalism. It has the stink of mercantilism, through and through.

Ride starting Thu May 29 16:44:32 2008
13.15 km 43136.11 feet 8.17 mi 2219.00 seconds 36.98 minutes 0.62 hours 13.25 mi/hr

Massively windy spring day. Not a cloud in the sky, although it promises to rain in a day or two. Dead-headed the last of the daffodils. We have many many "normal" daffodils, and two mutant daffodils. One of them has two or sometimes three flowers per stem. The other has a rose-like flower. There is no center cylinder like most daffodils have. Instead, you have what I call a "shattered" daffodil, where the petals spring out wildly from a central core. And I noticed that they don't form a seed head. No need to dead-head them since there's no seeds growing. Weird!

Since March of 2002, I've bicycled 24 million feet, 7.3 megameters, or 4536 miles, depending on how you want to say it. Wow.

Eleanor Gibson, Norwood, is quoted in the local free weekly (North Country This Week) as saying about gasoline prices "Something needs to be done, an investigation into this -- it's ridiculous."

Did she complain about low oil company profits when gasoline prices dropped? Probably not. So why does she think she has the right to complain when gasoline prices have gone up? Arguing for your own interests over those of other people is called "selfish".

I always have to wonder quite what people think can be done when they say "Something needs to be done"? Do they think that Congress can repeal the law of supply and demand? One might as well try to repeal the law of gravitation. There are very concrete causes for the increase in gasoline prices. It comes down to having to pay more than anybody else wants to pay.

I suspect that people think that Congress and the President run the economy, and can turn prices up, or down, as they wish. They should be careful what they wish for. Our current health care mess was caused by wage and price controls during WWII. Wages were limited, so to attract the best employees, employers bought them free health care. After the war was over, employees took free health care for granted. Health care was still affordable then, because most people paid for it out of pocket. Now that very few people have to pay their own medical bills, they don't care how much health care costs, so they don't care to economize, and the medical industry is happy to oblige their spendthrift ways. Everybody complains about how the insurance companies don't want to pay for anything. If people were paying their own money, they wouldn't want to pay for anything, and the medical industry would find itself needing to keep the cost of health care low.

22.66 km 74335.76 feet 14.08 mi 3858.00 seconds 64.30 minutes 1.07 hours 13.14 mi/hr

I broke my rim on the previous ride. Pulled a spoke head right through the rim. Oops. $90 later I have a new wheel. Also put on a red blinky taillight. Had to pull off the seat to get it on, and I noticed that the seatpost "MAX HEIGHT" marker was much lower than I thought, so I raised my seat. WOW, what a difference it made. Not only did I feel much stronger, but my butt hurt less. I think that with the seat higher, I'm putting more weight on my legs and less on the seat. Regardless, I feel like Mr. Super Bicyclist today.

Many people who believe that we should be thinking less of ourselves, and more about the future, cite the Iroquois maxim of thinking "Seven Generations" ahead. Why seven? Why not eight? Economists who have studied this issue call that number the result of the discount rate.

People discount the future. Not entirely, and not all at once. Life is uncertain, and with the passage of every bit of time, your plans have a chance of being disrupted. After enough bits of time, the chances of being disrupted add up to a probability of one. Beyond this time, you cannot plan, and you SHOULD NOT plan.

How do you determine the discount rate? As it turns out, the discount rate is proportional to the (natural) interest rate. That rate is what people charge to lend money. Getting paid back is a plan, and those plans could be disrupted because of unforseeable future events, so people insist on being paid back more than they have loaned.

People's discount rate is roughly equivalent to the level of civilization in which they find themselves. Every sane person wants the discount to be as low as possible. Political action increases the discount, because it makes people's plans less likely to come to fruition. That's why, when economists say that they want a small government, what they really are saying is that they want a prosperous society.

Those who say "people before profits" fail to understand why profits are important. Profits tell you that you aren't wasting resources -- that customers value what you are creating, over and above the cost of doing it. Without a system of free enterprise, private property, and capitalism, you can't tell how much to pay your workers, how to price your products, how much to build vs buy, how much to make in one day. I can't imagine what mechanism these people would use to replace the decision-making power of profits.

23.31 km 76486.92 feet 14.49 mi 6052.00 seconds 100.87 minutes 1.68 hours 8.62 mi/hr

Went west on the Rutland Trail from Knapps Station, into Norwood, cut through the CSX "yard" (which is actually just one siding, down from twenty many years ago), north along the New York and Ogdensburg tracks, and then back to Knapps Station.

I have a goal of riding every named Rail-Trail in New York State. There are many more railbeds not used for trains anymore which are also ridable. They are usually unnamed, unsigned, and unpublished. I speculate that this is because the owner is either indifferent or away. I've ridden some of these but I'm more interested in getting the named trails ridden first. I'm maintaining the list of NY rail-trails on my Rutland Trail website.

Trails I've ridden:

• Ballston Bike Trail,
• Black River Recreational Trail,
• Bog Meadow Brook,
• Cato Fair Haven Trail,
• Cayuga Hojack Trail,
• DnH Canal Heritage Corridor North,
• DnH Canal Heritage Corridor South, (partially)
• Dutchess Rail Trail,
• Hudson Valley Rail Trail,
• Jim Tedisco Fitness Trail,
• Maple City Trail,
• North County Trailway,
• Ontario Pathways Rail Trail,
• Oswego Recreational Trail,
• Railroad Run,
• Rivergate Trail,
• The Rutland Trail,
• Wallkill Valley Rail Trail,
• Warren County Bikeway,
• Zim Smith Trail,

Trails I haven't (yet) ridden:

Allegheny River Valley Trail, Auburn Fleming Trail, Canalway Trail, Catherine Valley planned, Catherine Valley, Catskill Scenic Trail, Chautauqua Alison Wells Ney, Chautauqua Brockton Area Recreational Trail, Chautauqua Brocton Area Recreational Trail, Chautauqua Laurie A. Baer Trail, Chautauqua Nadine and Paul Webb Trail, Chautauqua Nancy B. Diggs Trail, Chautauqua Ralph C. Sheldon Jr. Trail, Chautauqua Village of Mayville Trail, Cheektowaga Trail, Clarence Akron Pathway, Corning Bike Path, Fonda, Johnstown and Gloversville Rail Trail, Genesee Valley Greenway, Gorge Trail, Harlem Valley Rail Trail, Jim Schug Trail, Joseph B. Clarke Rail Trail, Lehigh Memory Trail, Lehigh Valley Linear Trail, Lehigh Valley Rail Trail, Newstead trail, Orange Heritage Trailway, Outlet Trail, PatMcGeeTrail, Philip A. Rayhill Memorial Recreational Trail, Portage Trail, Putnam County Trailway, Rochester, Syracuse n Eastern Trolley Trail, Shawangunk Rail Trail, Sodus Point to Wallington Trail, South County Trailway, Spring Run Trail, (doesn't really exist yet) Tarrytown Lakes extension, Town of Edwards Nature Trail, Uncle Sam Bikeway, Vestal Rail Trail, Webster Hojack Trail, White Plains Greenway,

26.29 km 86248.47 feet 16.33 mi 5960.00 seconds 99.33 minutes 1.66 hours 9.87 mi/hr

Rode on the Glens Falls Feeder Canal Trail, and the old Champlain Canal Trail. At the north end of the Champlain Canal Trail, it dead-ends at Bend Creek. Doesn't get much use for that reason. The other direction heads towards Fort Edwards. You can still trace the route of the canal through most of Fort Edwards.

Could have turned back and rode back on the trail (which would have been fun), but I decided to come back on the roads. The weather wasn't looking good, was predicted to rain, and I had a computer install to do at my mother-in-law's.

1.92 km 6310.10 feet 1.20 mi 2056.00 seconds 34.27 minutes 0.57 hours 2.09 mi/hr

Sigh. I attempted to bicycle the Tahawus (North Creek) branch of the D&H, starting at Rt28. There was a fair bit of brush, both overhanging and growing within the grade. I could have dealt with that, however, the ballast was not well-regulated and the bike tire kept hanging up in the gaps between the ties. I ended going up just past the curve.

That could be a really nice place to ride a railbike, however. It's all very pretty woods. Found a couple of interesting things: there are some broken-open batteries presumably spewing lead courtesy of acid rain, sitting next to a battery box. The old telegraph line is still in place, sticking up with its wires through the trees and brush. A ten foot section of rail was sitting off to one side. The maker's date is 1924. Lackawanna OH process.

There's much less overhanging brush and brush within the grade on the south side of the road. A stop sign facing back along the railbed says that snowmobilers use that part. Broken and trimmed branches says that some of them continue on the north side, but they can't be having too much fun. They ought to come through in the summer and trim back the brush. Their efforts would be repaid in the winter with a pleasant ride.

40.02 km 131284.94 feet 24.86 mi 7435.00 seconds 123.92 minutes 2.07 hours 12.04 mi/hr

I've been wanting to do this ride for a while. I've done every one of those roads before, but not in this combination. I noticed that I could go out the one road, hit US11 for a little bit, go out along the other side of the river, then back on US11 for a little while longer, then back to the West Branch of the St. Regis River again, then back to US11 yet again, and finally head home.

I bicycled 105.7 miles this week. If you count last Saturday's ride as being with the period which is 7*24 hours, I rode 118.6 miles.

Audio of the ride.

26.61 km 87316.03 feet 16.54 mi 4652.00 seconds 77.53 minutes 1.29 hours 12.80 mi/hr

Went out to Stockholm Center on US 11, and back on Reagon Road. As an experiment, I recorded an audio file of the ride, and my musings / mutterings / maunderings. One of these days, I need to go between Wells Road and Old Forge Road, which is probably real prickly ashy, but worth a try.

I speculated that a hill on the horizon might be Lyon Mountain, but it's more likely to be Debar Mountain. The hill that I guessed was Azure is very likely to be such.

25.74 km 84447.04 feet 15.99 mi 6957.00 seconds 115.95 minutes 1.93 hours 8.28 mi/hr

Went into West Stockholm to mail off a package, and into Potsdam to drop off a newsletter at the meetinghouse. A gorgeous day in Northern New York. Started the ride with 5% clouds, ended it with 1%. The sun was warm, the air was cool, couldn't ask for more.

21.89 km 71821.76 feet 13.60 mi 3692.00 seconds 61.53 minutes 1.03 hours 13.26 mi/hr

Went into town for ... no reason at all. Just to ride. Stopped by Heather's place of work (Myler Chiropractic).

I think David Isenberg is a little frustrated with me, because he keeps snarking at me about economics. The problem is that not only does he not "get it", he doesn't understand that he's not getting it. It's like the guy who adds 2 plus 2 to get 5, and then when you say that he's bad at math, he says "Oh yeah? Well I know that 3 plus 4 is 8!"

From the looks of things, David is good at finance -- at least that's what his later posting is about. Trouble is that finance is not economics. Finance tells you how much, but economics tells you why. Finance can let you determine that two things have the same value, or the same cost, but only economics can tell you why people would buy one versus the other.

This seems to be a fairly commonly executed fallacy. Many many people feel free to criticize economics and economists, when it's clear that they don't know the first thing about economics. I think that's because they, like David, confuse finance for economics. They figure that they can balance their checkbook, so they know as much as somebody who has studied economics for years and year. At least, that's my best guess, but I might be wrong.

55.78 km 183015.11 feet 34.66 mi 12577.00 seconds 209.62 minutes 3.49 hours 9.92 mi/hr

Wow, what a great ride. Of course, I got back in at 8:50PM ... perhaps a little late given that I'd lost most of the light at 8:35. But I was on back roads at that point and nobody overtook me (I would have gotten off on the shoulder if they had).

Rode from Knapps Station to North Lawrence on the Rutland Trail. I wanted to see the nice new bridges that "they" had put in. Here's one of them:

I had heard that Harry Dow (et al) had purchased a section of the trail, but I didn't realize that it was the closed section. This is great stuff!

20.42 km 66992.06 feet 12.69 mi 6143.00 seconds 102.38 minutes 1.71 hours 7.44 mi/hr

Went for a ride on the Christopher Muka section of the Rutland Trail.

33.08 km 108514.70 feet 20.55 mi 6387.00 seconds 106.45 minutes 1.77 hours 11.58 mi/hr

Rode out to a friend's house on Bagdad Road. Upwind all the way out, and on the way back, the wind was pushing me up the hills.

Usually, customers seek the maximum value at all times. This could mean paying a lot for very high quality, or paying a little for something that barely suffices. But customers optimize for value -- bang for the buck.

In the American health care system, nobody is optimizing for value. The patient demands the highest standard of care regardless of the cost. The insurance company demands the lowest payments regardless of the quality of the care.

This is totally wrong. We need to move to a system where most people pay most medical bills out of pocket, and insurance companies step in only when the costs are completely unaffordable. To get there, we need to eliminate the deductibility of health care costs. Why should health care be deductible on income taxes when food is not? Food is way more important to your health than is a doctor's care. So is exercise, but neither one is deductible.

We also need to accept that most insurance companies will need to fire most of their employees, and that doctors' offices will need to fire one or more employees. On the bright side, consider that that will free up their labor for production that makes American society better rather than worse, as is currently the case.

David Isenberg drives me batty. He's the fellow who pointed out that a stupid network (intelligence at the edges) produces more public benefit than the smart network that his then-employer, AT&T, was building. Well, of course when you make a public fuss like that, you either change your employer's direction, or you have to leave. He left, and has been a successful consultant since then.

Unfortunately, David doesn't know much economics. Like most people who don't know much economics, he feels free to cast aspersions on what he calls junk economics. He complains therein that some of his friends deny the peak oil hypothesis. Maybe he means me? I don't deny the hypothesis in the sense that I'm not an expert on oil. I have been studying economics, however, and can make some predictions which counter David's "Junk" economics.

First is that there are sources of huge amounts of oil which are not profitable to extract when the Saudis are dumping oil. Second is that nobody is going to invest in these oil sources unless it looks like they can successfully sell their oil. So they're not going to act simply because the price of oil is high. Everybody expects the Saudis to try to push the price of oil up to extract the maximum possible profit.

But if the Saudis are artificially restricting the supply of oil, they can artificially expand it as well. The people sitting on more expensive oil are going to wait to extract it until they're sure that the Saudis can't screw them by expanding production.

As I said at and after David's WTF conference back in 2004, people will not act simply because experts say that peak oil has occurred on such-and-such a date. People will act when they wish to avoid discomfort and not before.

Yes, the end of cheap oil is going to be a challenge. But it's not going to be the end of the world. Probably the only bigger challenge we'll face as a species is the global cooling of the next ice age. That is going to be a problem when the ice starts covering the northern hemisphere.

UPDATE (since a friend pointed out that I hadn't made my point) 5/5.

The world lurches from crisis to crisis. You might think this is a sign of mismangement, a flaw in human nature, or simply God screwing up. (As for the last, I believe that God stops in from time to time to see if we've blown ourselves up yet, so he can promote the great apes, but that's the extent of his involvement in the world.) Regardless of your opinion, that is how people work.

In these crises, many people take different actions to try to resolve the crisis. People fitting underneath a bell curve, they will try all sorts of things. Some of them work, some do not. Sooner or later, a smart person invents something that totally crashes through the crisis. Blows it apart. The crisis is gone, and what we have is better than what we had before the crisis. For example, a hundred years ago, New York City was fast approaching a crisis of equine proportions: piles of horse shit in the streets, and no place to put them. "We" invented the automobile, and have experienced huge benefits in personal mobility.

The key to remember is that nobody can predict who will invent this new thing, nor what it will be. In order to facilitate this solution to the crisis, the best thing government can do is: nothing. Don't favor anyone or anything, let everybody do everything, don't stop anything that's peaceful.

You may ask yourself, "but why don't we get the government to do something to avert these crises before they become full-blown crises?" The answer is simply that the government is doing something. It is actively maintaining the peace. It is choosing not to interfere with peaceful human relations. It is choosing not to favor one solution over another. Choosing not to choose is a choice -- probably the hardest choice to make.

UPDATE 5/12: David doesn't have much to say about this post. I think he is trying to trivially refute me by pointing to the fact that I don't think much of some people who call themselves economists. I've been saying that all along.

13.79 km 45249.84 feet 8.57 mi 2829.00 seconds 47.15 minutes 0.79 hours 10.91 mi/hr

Just a short ride "around the block", but I also found out where is the access road for the cell tower they put in last year -- at the end of Dudy Road on the top of a 440' tall hill. That's surprising, because there are hills very close by which are 50' taller. Maybe they liked this hill because it's close to a road and also has no trees?

I recently got myself a Flickr Pro account, and have been using Flickr for more of my photos. I find myself more and more annoyed at the rough edges in the Flickr user interface. For example, when you want to delete a tag from something, you click on the [x] to the right of the tag. Flickr asks you "Do you want to delete the tag?" Cancel/Ok:

This is almost certainly the wrong thing to do. It annoys people because the website is (in effect) saying "Hey, that might be a stupid thing to do, so I'm going to slow you down so you can think about it." The first couple of times people might pause to think (but what they're likely thinking is "you stupid computer, I told you what to do".) After that, when they want to delete a tag, the action will be "Click X; Click Ok", with no pause for thought.

That is how people think. That is how people are able to learn a complicated game like chess, or go. People chunk information and actions together. This allows the forebrain to go on thinking about other things while the rest of the brain carries out an action previously decided-upon. If an action requires a confirmation, the hindbrain will confirm it as part of executing the action chunk.

The way to work with human congnition rather than against it is to allow for Undo. Undo isn't a new idea -- we were using it 25 years ago. Undo works well with the human brain because it allows actions to happen without confirmations, but it also allows the forebrain (which operates slower than the hindbrain) to realize that it has made a mistake, and correct it with an Undo.

Flickr isn't all bad. They do use Undo sometimes:

When they add an image to a set, they add an indication that it's in the set over on the right, so the "OK" part is useless. They should skip the dialog entirely and insert a temporary "UNDO" below the set listing. Even when they do use UNDO, they spoil its operation with a confirmation:

Of course I want to remove it from the set! That's why I just clicked on UNDO, right?

Following the confirmation is another useless "Click OK to indicate that you are still alive" box.

Of course it's been removed, because the set listing is now gone. The proper way to handle this is to grey out the set listing on the right, and add an "UNDO" button below it.

Even if you've implemented your website using Open Source software like Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP, you don't escape the low quality typical of proprietary software unless your software is Open Source.

It's easy to volunteer other people to fix problems. In the Open Source world, the typical response is "great idea; send a patch." Flickr lives in the Web 2.0 world, not the Open Source world. Their software sucks just like any proprietary program. We can't fix it. Only Flickr can fix it, and hopefully, they'll at least fix the problems I've outlined here.

Having watched people poop on the streets in Mumbai, wanting to help stop that, and not knowing what to do, I was pleased to come across the PoopReport's project to help people in India. Specifically, schoolgirls in Uttar Pradesh. They can build a composting toilet for $250, which is a fair sum, but less than the computer you're using to read this posting. Granted, it's not Mumbai, but the problem is still the same.

Our new governor says that state government needs to do more to lower cost of doing business in New York:

To create a more conducive climate for business, the governor said New York must make doing business in the state cheaper by investing in infrastructure and reducing high energy and health care costs.

How the heck is he going to do that? By pressing the "lower energy costs" and "lower health care costs" buttons? He's a Democrat, and Democrats are historically unwilling to do what is actually needed to lower these costs: nothing. Government needs to get out of the way of creative resourceful people with ideas. Government has a positive role to play while getting out of the way: by ensuring that all relations between people are peaceful. But that's government's only role.

He goes on to say:

For his part, Gov. Paterson reiterated his commitment to belt-tightening and fiscal prudence. "Our economy is still reeling," the governor said. "When this storm hits, we can't simply do what Albany usually does: turn around and tax the first business or the first resident we see. Rather, we have to cut wasteful spending."

No, David, you need to cut all spending, not just the wasteful spending. You need to do less for us, you need to do less to us. You need to do less, period. Shut down department after department, and send the people home to get productive jobs. Most of what New York State does is either irrelevant or actively harmful.

Many, many programs written in C or C++ use a file called "config.h" which contains #define statement that control the compilation of the program. These programs are also nearly always build using 'make'.

I claim that these two attributes are in conflict with each other. Or, in layman's terms, "config.h sucks". The problem is that when you have multiple options in config.h, every file which may be compiled differently depending on the values defined therein, must be recompiled whenever config.h changes.

The correct way to do compile-time options is to have a config subdirectory containing a multitude of .h files, each with its own #define in it. These are easily managed because each file has only one #define, and when the source file mentions the thing being defined, it needs a #include of that config file. The 'make' program is trivially informed of these dependencies by looking at the files included in each source.

So, when you change one option, only those files which depend on it will get recompiled.

I wrote this blog posting while waiting for a program to recompile because I changed config.h .... and it's still not finished recompiling on pretty studly machine. Ahhhh, it just finished.

Of course, this is completely disrupted when you rewrite your Makefile (as GNU automake does), but that's a subject for a different posting.

23.92 km 78479.41 feet 14.86 mi 4784.00 seconds 79.73 minutes 1.33 hours 11.18 mi/hr

Went out along the West Branch of the St. Regis River. Out on the east side, back on the west side. I'd broken a spoke on yesterday's ride, and it was threatening to rain, and I got started late, otherwise I'd have gone for a longer ride. Excuses, excuses.

34.88 km 114442.15 feet 21.67 mi 9272.00 seconds 154.53 minutes 2.58 hours 8.42 mi/hr

First ride on the Rutland Trail. Rode to Winthrop on the trail and back on the highway. A tad muddy to go both ways. I'll have to spend some time with a hoe cleaning out the drainage ditches that I've dug out in past years. No rest for the weary. Met a fellow named "Joe" from Brasher Falls, riding an ATV on the trail. He, too, is weary of the people who can't stay on the trail, who dig ruts intentionally with their wheels, who litter, and otherwise make a bad name for ATV riders.

29.17 km 95709.07 feet 18.13 mi 5222.00 seconds 87.03 minutes 1.45 hours 12.50 mi/hr

Rode the Zim Smith Trail Tuesday evening. The trail has some construction associated with it, so it would be an impossible ride during the work day. Fortunately, all the construction sites were quiet and empty, so I was able to buzz past them. The eastern end at Coons meets up with the D&H line, but the railroad there actually continued on its own railbed, so apparently they have plans to extend the trail into Mechanicville, which will be a good thing.

72.40 km 237522.48 feet 44.99 mi 16318.00 seconds 271.97 minutes 4.53 hours 9.92 mi/hr

Rode the North County Trailway on Sunday. Excellent riding even though it's paved the whole way. The neatest thing from my perspective was riding on the old railroad bridge over the Croton Aquaduct. This trail follows the Putnam Division of the New York Central Railroad, mostly.

2.81 km 9211.29 feet 1.74 mi 750.00 seconds 12.50 minutes 0.21 hours 8.37 mi/hr

Rode on Railroad Run on the southwest side of Saratoga Springs. It's built on the Delaware & Hudson's mainline through Saratoga Springs, relocated west of the city many years ago. It's a combination paved trail and stone dust trail. Alas, it's seriously short. They got a grant in 2002 to extend it southwards; they just started work on it this spring.

7.27 km 23850.51 feet 4.52 mi 2342.00 seconds 39.03 minutes 0.65 hours 6.94 mi/hr

Rode on the Bog Meadow Nature Trail on Saturday, after my mother-in-law's wedding with my now step-father-in-law. I'm just gonna call him "Dad". Simplifies things since all previous contenders for that name are now deceased.

The trail is constructed on the right-of-way of the Saratoga and Schuylerville Railroad. There are parking areas at both ends of the trail. Unfortunately, they haven't pulled the ties. So, not only is the creosote leaking into the bog and the meadow, it's also a bitch to bicycle since the trail is far from smooth. It's fine for hiking, but unless they improve the trail, there's no pleasure in bicycling it.

Everybody willing to give up home, family, community, home, hearth, and (within two generations) language to come here has the same nature as everyone else already here, and is thus already an American. We should not stand in the way of anyone who wants to set up a new life in America.

Period.

21.01 km 68918.57 feet 13.05 mi 5195.00 seconds 86.58 minutes 1.44 hours 9.05 mi/hr

I'm starting to like this ride. The view from the most northern road on the ride is simply gorgeous. You can see all the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains.

The comedian John Oliver was quoted as saying, about an inflatable floating barbacue grill, which lets you cook while soaking in your pool:

"Is there any greater example of what it is to live in the freest nation on Earth than that?", he marvels with no small dose of irony

Sure, it's funny, just the idea of cooking in a pool. But why would it be ironic that freedom would produce strange outliers? In a free society, most people would be most like most other people. But out on the ends of the bell curve you've got some strange people doing strange things, and selling strange stuff. The face that you can find this strangeness is good evidence that America really is the freest nation on Earth.

17.55 km 57579.57 feet 10.91 mi 8475.00 seconds 141.25 minutes 2.35 hours 4.63 mi/hr

Went for a ride on the D&H Linear Park. It is built on the towpath of the D&H Canal. The track is incomplete because my GPS receiver didn't start up right away. I started at Hornbeck's Basin, a canal turning / docking area, north of Wurtsboro, and continued north (not on the track). After a bit, I noticed the NYO&W railbed to my right. I switched over to it, even though it was quite muddy in places. The grass of the towpath is hard to ride through.

Just south of Summitville, the railbed gets brushed over. Started to head over to the canal to go up to Summitville, when I remembered the NYO&W main line heading up the side of the hill. Doubled back to find it, and yep, it was right there on the hill, about 30 feet up. It's both free of brush, and open to the public, owned by the New York - New Jersey Trail Conference. Hooray! Unfortunately, there's a bit of ATV damage, and lots of crap dumped along the trail. This will be fixed in time, though, and the trail is still a great ride.

After I made it up to the High View Tunnel, I went back to the road I'd crossed earlier, and blew down the hill into Wurtsboro. Hopped on the towpath again, going south this time. Very much not a developed trail. They're maintaining it somewhat -- they'd cut down a tree that blocked the trail, but another one fell just twenty feet beyond it. Has the potential to be a nice trail, but it needs work, signage even. Rode north on the towpath back to my car, and on to Poughkeepsie.

10.23 km 33575.51 feet 6.36 mi 2283.00 seconds 38.05 minutes 0.63 hours 10.03 mi/hr

Rode the Hudson Valley Rail Trail (plus a bit) on Saturday. It's the Central New England's line from Poughkeepsie to Maybrook, although it's not ridable anywhere near that far. They've gotten money to lay a deck on the bridge and paint the bridge, so eventually the Dutchess Rail Trail and this one will be joinable ... if not joined.

At the south-east end of my ride is a bridge that's out, and in Lloyd is a road bridge that was replaced by a fill without any respect for the integrity of the trail, sigh. Just one eight-foot-diameter culvert would have sufficed. I had to climb over it, enter that section from the road, back-track, and go west from there to the end of the trail. It ends up going past a trailer park, which owns the right-of-way. Eventually they'll recognize it as an amenity and let people develop it as a trail.

Tons and tons of people were using the trail, even though I was riding near dusk, when the trail closes. A trail is a wonderful thing to have.