apple juice

The Kindest Cut on Slate is filled with mind-boggling statistics about food production, for example:

35 pounds of manure incurred per pound of saleable beef.

and

The poultry-broiler industry consumed some 240 billion megajoules of energy in 2005, or the equivalent of 42 million barrels of crude oil. That’s more than the entire country of Sri Lanka consumed the same year—all to keep us well-stocked with wings and drumsticks.

and

The livestock industry as a whole consumes a whopping share of the world’s crops—at least 80 percent of all soybeans and more than half of all corn.

and

food writer Michael Pollan recently suggested that if Americans went meatless one night a week, it would be equivalent to taking “30 to 40 million cars off the road for a year.”

I do like eating meat, but we’ve tried to cut back a bit. Maybe we should look in to raising some chickens in the back 40.

I’m laughing on the outside and crying on the inside:

Instant messaging. Twittering. Facebook updates. These 21st-century literary genres are defining a new “Lost Generation” of minimalists who would much rather watch Lost on their iPhones than toil over long-winded articles and short stories. Students will acquire the tools needed to make their tweets glimmer with a complete lack of forethought, their Facebook updates ring with self-importance, and their blog entries shimmer with literary pithiness.

from Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era in McSweeneys via kottke.org

I’m catching up on some back posts from 43 folders and I came across a great quote:

“Marketing is the tax you pay for being unremarkable”

Try applying that quote to yourself. I don’t know if I’m doing a good job of just letting my actions speak for myself, but I’d like to do better. If you’re really doing a good job, people know. Conversely, if you’re doing a really poor job, everyone knows. But the languishing in the middle, it’s just kind of boring.

Raising chickens in the city is growing in popularity among those interested in sustainability and keeping chickens as pets. But the venture often proves more difficult than expected.

via MinnPost – Urban chicken farming on the rise.

I joke about this quite often… I didn’t realize that people actually did it in the city.

To sell his vision of a high-speed train network to the American public, President Barack Obama this week cited Spain, a country most people dont associate with futuristic bullet trains.

via Spains Bullet Train Changes Nation — and Fast – WSJ.com.

Great article about the progress Spain has made with regards to rail travel. This is exactly the type of transformation we could experience here in America.

after reading inbox zero over at 43 folders i decided to take some decisive action on my work inbox.

i deleted or archived over 1000 messages today.

my inbox now stands at 10.

in flipping through the pages of emails, it’s amazing how much hits my inbox. i have a few more of the tips from the inbox zero articles to implement, but there is a satisfying calm now in at least one area of my life.

the free market is great, except when it’s not.

here’s a perfect example: municipal internet.

minneapolis is one of a few cities in the country that has rolled out a municipal wifi network. the price is decent, but the I’ve heard nothing good about the reliability. did you know, in stockholm, for example, that 100mbps internet is $11/month?

Yes, $11/month.

I pay ~$60/month for 12mbps down/2 up service from comcast. If I had a better option, I’d switch. The other options are:

Qwest, 1.5 down/.768 up is $40 (for those of us who don’t want their overpriced home phone service)

Or, I could pay $30/month for 6/1 service via the minneapolis wifi if I sign up for a 2-year contract.

So, why didn’t minneapolis focus on building a city-wide fiber optic network that could be resold to private companies?

Because private companies fight it tooth and nail. Americans pay more for their broadband than just about every other developed country. Think comcast, qwest or us internet want to compete with 100mbps service?

Nope.