Show Notes - Week of June 3, 2019

More on Capitalism:
It seems most everything I read lately has to do with the failures of capitalism and what might and should replace it. When I mentioned that to my friend Mark, he sent me a link to a Boing Boing article quoting Joe Stiglitz calling neoliberalism a "failed ideology". This analysis is similar to my recent readings from Lapham, Fleming, and the 60 Minutes episode, as well as the Paul Collier book I am currently reading (more on that next week). Select the "Capitalism" category to find those articles. Stiglitz has an impressive number of books in his bibliography, if his message resonates.

Let's say this turkey represents total wealth. We can carve it up thus and give ...

Speaking of Wealth:
At a casual dinner this week for a retiring co-worker, he commented that the luxury of time to explore new ideas on one's own time frame is true wealth. Sage words. 

Health benefits of cycling:
I have pretty much abandoned Twitter, favoring this medium as my preferred choice for hosting my writing and commentary that no one reads. However, on occasion I do still tweet something, and last week I tweeted about a UK study of the health benefits of cycling. The numbers are quite staggering to be honest, leading me to wonder whether people would take a pill that gave them comparable results, and if so, how much they would be willing to pay for that pill. The tweet proved to be quite popular, at least as much as any of my tweets are ever popular. The link to the actual study is here, and the link to the tweet is immediately to the right of this text. 

The U.S. Has a Fleet of 300 Electric Buses. China Has 421,000:
Is there much else to be said after a stat like that? Well maybe that the rest of the world combined has a total of 4,000 electric buses, so less than 1% of China. Crazy. The stats are from a May article in Bloomberg that I just read this week. On a local scale, ETS is in the process of purchasing up to 50 electric buses, which makes transit in Edmonton a player on the world stage if you exclude China. 

Coming soon to a bus stop near you. In Edmonton, or China, but not the US.

Reading pile:
My consumption of books continues, with two more finished this week, and one I forgot to mention last week. 

First up on the list is "Red Queen" by Victoria Ayeyard, a fairly involved young adult-fantasy-adults are evil-only I can save the world novel. I started reading it to the younger daughter, but she lost interest, so after a number of weeks, I picked it up again and finished it off. Completely enjoyable, somewhat novel in concept, and good enough to read the next one in the series (because don't all of these type of books come in a series?).

Second is Michio Kaku's "The Future of Humanity". Kaku is clearly intelligent and is able to convey complex ideas fairly simply. I guess I was hoping for more from this book given his pedigree. This book was interesting in parts, and it did present some suggestions on how humans could move from Earth to Mars and beyond, but there was little in the way of enthralling narrative or vision. The best part of this book was Kaku's description of a T. Rex as a walking mouth. 

Third is "Drive: Volume 2" by Dave Kellett. I love Kellet's work, and especially with Drive which allows his to tell a complex and interesting story and intersperse it with his oddball humor. I picked up Volume 1 and 2 via two of his Kickstarters, and am looking forward to Volume 3. The entire Drive comic can be read online on Kellet's site. 

New beers:
Two new beers this week. First was the Honey Buck Mead from Fallentimber. This was full of ginger so it had a nice spice. These guys make nice mead; their Meadjito was also quite good. (3.75 / 5) The other new brew this week was the Premium Lager from Chakra out of India. I'm not much of a lager fan, but this one was quite good. Their story is interesting as well. From their website, Charkra was formed in 2006 in order to provide "a perfect beverage which complements the Indian food for owners of Punjabi/Indians Caterers, Corner Shops, Bars, Clubs and Restaurants throughout the world." This is exactly how I found this beer, eating at an Indian buffet for lunch one day. (3.5 / 5)

New words:
Surprisingly few new words this week, even though I read a ton.

pil·lion
[ˈpilyən]
NOUN

1. a seat for a passenger behind a motorcyclist.

towheaded
[ˈtōˌhedəd]
ADJECTIVE

1. having very light blond or untidy hair.

twee
[twē]
ADJECTIVE
BRITISH

1. excessively or affectedly quaint, pretty, or sentimental.