Taking out the trash

A recent article in Seven Days (the local "indie" paper) reported on the debate over a bill that would add a dollar to the cost of each tire sold in Vermont, which would then go towards the costs of collection and disposal. An opponent of the bill is quoted as complaining about why tires are singled out. “It’s computer stuff, couches, TVs, shopping carts, all kinds of things. Do we now tax a dollar on every TV that’s sold . . . on and on? Or do we try to enforce the current laws?”

Well, actually, putting the costs of collection and disposal up front, when the consumer buys the item, and providing "free" disposal when the consumer wants to throw the item out, makes a whole lot more sense than collecting fees at disposal time and spending money trying to enforce largely unenforceable laws against illegal dumping. Simply take away the "rational" incentive to illegally dump (boy, it's expensive for me to properly dispose of these tires/tvs/etc; I'm just gonna dump 'em in the river/woods and no one will know the difference), and you'll just be left with the vandals (heh-heh, wouldn't it be cool to push a shopping cart down this hill?) to try to catch and prosecute.

The challenge of creating a system in which the costs of collection and disposal are put up front (without creating a more horrible bureaucracy) is left as an exercise to the reader; given the existence of state sales taxes, the collection aspect isn't particularly important. Instead focus on the problems of proper assignment of the cost of disposal for items -- clearly a tire costs more to dispose of than a plastic potato chip bag, but how exactly should you assign costs? (a straight percentage might work; then again, a $40 dvd player probably costs as much to properly dispose of as a $300 one, and a lot more to dispose of than the packaging for $40 worth of organic green tea) -- and the problem of out-of-state and online purchases (solve this latter problem, and you've also solved a similar problem for sales taxes... good luck).

Fun with (X)ubuntu, non-power user edition

I first started to work on unix-type operating systems as an undergraduate, in my sophomore year of 1991-1992, and used them almost exclusively for 4 years while a graduate student. Mind, I had nothing to do with maintenance of these systems (we had a great sysadmin for that), but was a pretty experienced user by 1998. Then I moved to Chicago to work for SPSS, Inc, spent all my time at work on Windows (NT, then 2K, now XP), and my unix skills atrophied. I made a couple of attempts around 2000-2001 to play with a couple different linux distros and freeBSD, but I really just didn't care to spend that much time installing and tooling with my OS, especially when all the great free unix-y apps were being ported to Windows (bring out the GIMP!).

Then, last summer we got a new desktop at home, and I could do whatever the heck I wanted with the old one. My brother-in-law (Ankara) turned me on to Ubuntu, and I toyed around with the Dapper Drake version in my (sadly limited) spare time. The real problem was that the Gnome and KDE desktops felt slow on the old PIII. However, SPSS was now going to ship a Linux client version, so working with my linux box was actually useful for work (the surest way to learn anything is to have a practical goal), so I made do with the Gnome interface most of the summer.

Within the last month, however, I started poking around Xubuntu and decided I really liked how the xfce desktop ran. A co-worker then promptly pointed out Fluxbuntu for older computers, but I think I'll stick with Xubuntu until Fluxbuntu is a little more mature -- not that Xubuntu doesn't have its share of growing pains, the A-#1 for me being the lack of "native" browsing on networked Windows machines. Thank goodness for ubuntuforums.org and google, which revealed this and that.

Win the games you can

Cumulative games over .500

Week        ALE  ALC  ALW  NLE  NLC  NLW
2007-09-09    8   -8   22   -5  -47   30

The competition in the NL West is absolutely brutal (see above), and you have to just win the games you can win, and not worry about the rest. This past week Jake Peavy made a start on 3 days rest, but for Ed Whitson's sake, why?!!?

Sure, Arizona had taken the previous game and would take the division lead with a win on Wednesday, but that single game would hardly make or break the Padres' playoff chances, so there's no need for Peavy to even try to be heroic. I could understand if pitching Peavy on Wednesday would allow Bud Black to slate him in for an extra start by the season's end, but looking ahead, that can't happen. Jack Cassel pitched all right in his previous start, so it's not like Stauffer or Hensley would have to be out on the mound. Saving Peavy for Friday gives him, Maddux, and Germano good rest for the weekend series against Colorado and Chris Young a full week between starts (not to mention the luxury of pitching at Dodger stadium instead of Coors and against a weaker lineup**), and gives you the best chance to win the games you can win. Squeezing Peavy in against a team you're tied with when there are 20 games left is a little panicky.

There's a little bit of hindsight here, because I'm writing after the disastrous weekend results, but that's how I felt on Tuesday -- I just don't like modern pitchers working on 3 days rest without a good reason.

** Young was looking a little healthier in the game against the Rockies than in his previous two starts; here's hoping he's good to go for the playoffs

Still learning...

We took our 3-year-old, Connor, to an "organized" playgroup with native Chinese speakers yesterday to see if he would have fun. Sort of, it was okay, he actually said his name aloud to the group and seemed comfortable clapping and singing in Mandarin. We'll be back there next week to give it another try.

Today we went to an "organized" pre-school soccer group to see if he would have fun. About halfway in to the 40-minute session, he sat on the side while other ran around and kicked soccer balls. No fun, but we'll be back there next week to give it another try, since one of his buddies is also going.

After soccer, we went with a friend to Mount Philo, a local 980' hill, and walked the trail (carrying Connor part of the way in a child carrier backpack) to the summit. After a little picnic, we met an ornithologist who was watching hawks migrating south. He had cool binoculars, and Connor loved looking for birds in the sky (even though he didn't get to use the binoculars), and the ornithologist was happy to talk to us and point out turkey vultures and kestrels (and some other flying things, like dragonflies and swallowtail butterflies :-). We didn't see very many while we were there, he explained to his enraptored audience, because the winds were blowing out of the south, so it was bad weather for winter migrating. After looking for more birds (and the ornithologist was impressed with the fact that Connor found one before he saw it!), and sighting a couple of pirate ships on the lake, we went back down the hill and back home.

So what we've discovered again today is that the best thing to do is to simply go hang out where cool people are and not worry too much about "organizing" fun and learning.

The "Other" Paperback Reutter

Before choosing this moniker for my blog, I ran through several other ideas and promptly discarded them after quick searches to determine that they were already in use by thousands of other people. But then I remembered that my friend Randi referred to me as "Paperback" Reutter in her link to my grad student website from her grad student website, and there just aren't very many Reutters out there... so a search on paperback reutter on Google revealed paperbacks by Mark Reutter (no relation) and, about 15 hits down, Randi's old website! Whee! I love seriously out-of-date personal pages that never get taken down. So the way seemed clear and here we are.

Uh-oh. But if you run a search on "paperback reutter", you get the newsletters for Nate & Ruth Reutter, missionaries to Brazil (also no relation). Actually, the links from the Google hits appear to be broken, so you have to go to their main site at http://www.reutterfamily.com/ and navigate from there to find their "Paperback Reutter" newsletters.

At any rate, while I feel like I've arrived at the ball wearing the same dress as another debutante, I'm confident in knowing that Randi's ancient website distinguishes me as the "original" paperback Reutter on the web. ;-)