Tag: Money

An Experiment in Noise Pollution Reduction

I’ve been trying an experiment over the past year. It includes trying to reduce the amount of noise pollution I endure during the day. No, I haven’t buried myself in an anechoic chamber. What I have done is consciously reduced the noise around me, including the sound levels of all sorts of sources. As I’m able, I’m reducing the sound levels of my music and of the television (for example) or turning them off completely. What I’m finding is that the sound levels I listened to when I started sound absurdly loud to me now. I don’t have enough medical knowledge to know whether someone’s hearing can repair itself, but I do know that turning down the sound has forced me to pay attention better when I want to hear something. The difference in focus has had a profound effect.

Reducing sound levels has both health and monetary benefits. The health benefits, at the least, are improved hearing. The monetary benefit is that I find I’m using less electricity to produce sound that I didn’t really want to hear in the first place. In addition, because I’m able to focus on a task with all of my energy, I complete tasks faster and with fewer errors, which usually has a positive monetary impact (or, at least gives me more time to do something else). These are the effects that I thought I would achieve when I started my experiment and they have proven to be quite easy to justify. Most importantly, I now find that I can hear things that I would have missed in the past. For example, if my wife requires aid, I can actually hear her more often (she’s incredibly soft spoken).

I’m finding a few surprise changes as the result of my experiment. For one thing, my blood pressure is less on days where I have fewer noise sources to contend with (as much as 15 mmHg), which bodes well for my long term health. I’m also finding that I suffer fewer headaches and that I appear to have more energy. So far, I haven’t seen much difference in my heart rate, which is something I had expected given the other changes I’ve noted. I wish there were some way to quantify how much of this effect is due to sound reduction and how much is due to overall health improvement due to our self-sufficient lifestyle, but I have to think that the sound reduction has a significant effect.

There are a few negative effects to the sound reduction experiment. The first is that I find that I wake easier at night. Sounds that I didn’t notice before are quite obvious now. So, when an animal is killing a rabbit outside, I wake now, rather than sleep through it. The disruption of my sleep does have a negative health effect, but I think the consistent positive health benefits I’ve received outweigh this somewhat negative effect (given that I fall back to sleep quite easily). The second is that I sometimes find myself straining to hear a sound that isn’t there. This psychological effect will likely become less pronounced as time goes on, but for now, it causes some level of stress when it occurs, which is only occasionally.

I haven’t completely cut out sound sources. For most of us, the complete loss of sound sources isn’t obtainable, desired, wanted, or even needed. What I have done is made a conscious effort to reduce the loudness of sound sources when I can. For example, instead of listening to the television at the 35 level, I’ll listen at the 25 or 20 level instead. I’ve cut music sources down to half their previous levels and I turn the music off completely in the afternoon when I’m focused most on writing. I also use hearing protection now even if the sound source isn’t what most people would consider absurdly loud (when using the lawn mower, for example).

Noise pollution poses serious health risks to people today. It isn’t just annoying, it causes all sorts of health, environmental, and monetary problems. While I have always advocated the use of hearing protection when working around loud equipment (wood chippers, weed whacker, chainsaw, blower, circular saw, and so on), this is my first foray into reducing sound levels from all other sources. The effects have been pronounced and I’m now beginning to wonder just how far I can take this and still maintain quality of life. There is a balance to things, after all. Have you considered the effects of noise pollution in your life? What can you do to reduce it? Let me know your thoughts on noise pollution at [email protected].

 

Harvest Festival 2012

Last year I told you about some of the things we do for Harvest Festival in Fun is Where You Find It! (Part 3) post. Of course, every year has some similarities. There is the special music and it wouldn’t be Harvest Festival without a few games. Apple cider is always part of our celebration, along with plenty of samples from the garden. Our “kids” (the animals we keep as pets) always play a big role in Harvest Festival too.

As with everything else, this year’s Harvest Festival is a bit different. For one thing, our fruit trees didn’t produce anything. Things started off badly with an early spring that saw the trees bloom well before they should have. A late frost killed off a lot of the blossoms before the pollinators were even out to pollinate them. After that, some heavy winds knocked off a few more blooms. The fruit that did manage to set was killed off during this summer’s drought (we couldn’t even attempt to water all our trees). The result is that we ended up buying two bushels of apples so that Rebecca could make me some apple chips. I know that buying the apples by the bushel was a lot less expensive than buying them in the store, but even so, I wish we hadn’t had to do so.

Nothing goes to waste when we work with items from the garden. Of course, I use one of the apple peelers that produce the really long strands of apple peels. This year is the first time that we’ve had laying hens, so I was curious to see what they would make of the apple peels. They didn’t disappoint. One hen would grab an end of a peel and fly up to the nest box, while another would grab the other end to try and get the peel from the first hen. The two would then play this silly looking game of tug of war, even though there were lots of peels in the dishes. Both chickens just insisted that they really must have that single peel. By the time the chickens had played with the peels for a while, we had apples strung between the windows, rafters, nest box, and the dishes. It looked like some sort of crazy spider web created by a demented spider. By morning, all of the apple peels were gone, which also surprised me considering I had peeled 30 apples to get them. The chickens certainly like fresh fruit.

We don’t just process fruit during Harvest Festival. Our friends offered us some tomatoes and we gratefully accepted them considering our own tomatoes have had an anemic output this year. Rebecca turned the first bushel into salsa, catchup, and a canned salad. We hope to get two additional bushels for juice, whole canned tomatoes, and a bit for wine making. A lot of people enjoy my tomato wine.

It looks like this is going to be a stellar squash year. We have squash vines growing everywhere. Normally, the vines stay within the 40′ × 60′ area as long as we redirect them a bit. This year we have vines trying to grow into the grass and along the rows. There is a squash plant vying for space in one of the tomato cages and slowly edging the tomato out. I saw one trying to grow up the side of an eggplant and another is heading toward our okra. A vine that might normally produce three really nice squash has produced five, six, or possibly more (it’s such a mess out there that I’m having a hard time counting them all). Rebecca has also made all of the zucchini chips we need for the year. (See the Making Use of Those Oversized Zucchinis post for details.)

As I’ve always said, there is something interesting going on with each year. We never get bored here. One of the rewards of being self-sufficient is that you do see the changes wrought by the weather. What do you find exciting about the fall months of the year? Let me know at [email protected].

 

Interesting Money Issues for Computer Users

I was reading an article by John Dvorak entitled, “The Secret Printer Companies Are Keeping From You” recently that caused me to think about all of the ways in which I look for ways to reduce the costs of my computing experience without reducing quality. In this article, John discusses the use of less expensive replacements for inkjet printers. I found the arguments for the use of less expensive inks compelling. Then again, I’m always looking for the less expensive route to computing.

I’ve often tried the less expensive solution in other areas. For example, are the white box labels any different than the high end Avery alternatives? I found to my chagrin that this is one time when you want to buy the more expensive label. The less expensive labels often come by their price advantage in the form of less reliable adhesives or thinner paper. This isn’t always the case, but generally it is. When it comes to labels, you often get what you pay for. I tried similar experiments with paper and found that the less expensive paper was a bit less bright or possibly not quite as nicely finished, but otherwise worked just fine. It’s important to look carefully at the cheaper brands when you make a decision to buy them and determine whether there are any actual quality differences and whether you can live with those differences when present.

John is right about more expensive labeled products being passed off as less expensive off brand products. In some cases, I’ve found all sort of items that didn’t quite meet a vendors strict requirements for a labeled product sold as a less expensive off brand product. Sometimes you’d have to look very closely to see any difference at all. I also know that some white box vendors have name brand vendors product equipment with less stringent requirements or possibly not quite as many bells and whistles. The point is, that you can find new products that works almost as well as the name brand for substantially less money if you try.

However, let’s say you’re not willing to take a chance on a white box option. There is also a strong market now in rebuilt and refurbished equipment. Often, this is last year’s model that someone turned back in for the latest product. After a required check of the hardware and possibly a refit of a few items, a company will try to sell it to a new customer at a significantly reduced price. These refurbished items usually work as well as the new products. Because they’re already burned in, there is also less of a chance that you’ll encounter problems with them. Even Apple has gotten into the refurbished product game—I’m planning to buy a refurbished third generation iPad in the near future.

Getting systems designed for expandability is another good way to extend your purchasing power. You might not be able to afford absolutely everything you want today. Get what you can afford and then add onto the system later. This is the route I take quite often. I’ll get a motherboard and other system components that offer room for expansion and then I add what I need until the unit is maxed out. I can then get the next generation setup, move the parts that are still viable, and use the parts that are outdated for some other purpose. Often I’ll take pieces and put them together for a test system or for a unit that I’ll use to run an older operating system.

Some people have asked why I go through all this trouble when you can get a truly inexpensive system from a place like TigerDirect for under $500.00. I’ve looked at this systems closely enough to figure out that they usually won’t work for my needs right out of the box—I always end up adding enough to bring the price near to $1,000.00 and usually more. Once the system is delivered, I find there is little documentation and that the box is too small to accommodate any upgrades. I would have saved money in the long run by getting a better system that has expandability built in. Here is where the trap occurs. There is a point where you have cut costs so much that the PC ends up being a throwaway that proves frustrating. It’s false economy for a power user (the systems often work just fine for students or users who don’t run anything more complex than a word processor).

Getting the most out of your computer purchasing power takes thought and research. What has your best purchasing decision been? How about the worst mistake you’ve made? Let me know your thoughts about computer hardware purchases at [email protected].

 

Power Management and Computers

I have written more than a few times about power management issues. For example, my CFLs for Free and More on CFL Usage look at the benefits of using Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs) in the home. Over the years, readers have asked me time and again about power management on computer systems. Microsoft and other vendors have come up with all sorts of automation for turning hard drives, monitors, and even processors off in an attempt to use less power. In many cases, these strategies start with laptop devices and quickly move to desktop computers as well. The strategies often sound good in theory, but do they work in practice? In addition, does a practice that works well on a laptop translate into equal savings on a desktop system?

The main annoyance issue is one of turning off parts of the computer after the system sits idle for a while. I can’t tell you the number of times where I stopped to read something and suddenly found myself without a monitor. In some cases, I needed to wait until the hard drive powered up before I could continue working. There are even some situations where the system powered down other components that didn’t power back up correctly, causing me to reboot the system in order to restore stability. There are also times when there is a sudden power failure which causes the system to shut down or not give the desired outcome. In case you’ve trouble to fix a switching power supply like a pro, you should learn from a pro. There are quite a few websites on the internet which could help you learn more about the same.

Does turning off parts of the computer for a few moments actually save money in the long run? I think you have to weigh the cost savings against several other factors:

 

  • The cost of asking the user to wait while the components power back up.
  • The cost of powering the component off, rather than have it simply sit idle (start up power is normally higher than idle power).
  • Wear and tear on the equipment (although, most computer components never serve their entire lifetimes).
  • Support requirements for users who don’t understand the power saving features.


I admit to using power saving features to an extent with laptops because battery life suffers otherwise. It’s worth a little of my time to extend the life of the battery. However, some users with laptops plug them in wherever they go anyway, so battery life isn’t such a big deal for them. In short, you need to also consider how the user works with the computer. A laptop that is normally plugged in doesn’t really need a long battery life.

On my desktop system, I normally run in high performance mode. My time is more precious than the part of a cent that I would save by turning the monitor off for five minutes while the system waits for me. This strategy seems to run counter to other posts I’ve made, but devices are there for the convenience of the user, not the other way around. Saving power when it makes sense to do so is one thing-having the monitor turn itself off while you’re in the midst of reading something is quite another.

I never put my system in hibernate mode. When I’m finished for the day, I turn my system off. There are a lot of reasons for this strategy:

 

  • The system doesn’t use any power when it’s off, so turning the system off consumes less power than hibernate mode.
  • The system doesn’t produce any heat when it’s off, so I also save money on cooling bills.
  • Restarting the system each morning clears memory, so I encounter fewer memory corruption issues.
  • Because I get a cup of coffee after starting my system, it doesn’t cost me any time to turn it off at night.
  • Turning the system off reduces noise in the house.
  • Even though my system is protected by an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), turning the system off reduces the risk of damage to the system during the evening hours.
  • Powering the system down reduces the risk of fire from the computer system components overheating while I’m not there to watch them.


I realize that corporations often perform maintenance during the evening hours, so placing the system in hibernate mode means that any automated updates can wake the system long enough to get the maintenance done. Still, I can’t help but think that leaving the system on during one night of the week would be sufficient to accommodate updates. The organization would realize significantly more cost savings by turning systems off at night.

What is your take on power management with computer systems? I’m currently exploring this issue as part of one of the books I’m writing and would love to hear what you think. Is there a good reason to turn that monitor off after a short interval of inactivity? How do you normally configure your system? Let me know at [email protected].

 

Dealing with Stress

I want to start this post by saying I’m not a psychiatrist or a physician-if you have a medical condition, you really need to consult these professionals and not rely on Internet posts to meet your needs. If you find some of what I’ve written down helpful then great. Similarly, if you wish to try alternative methods, such as CBD or Cannabis gummies that’s good too, in the end, discover what is right for you. That said, a number of people have contacted me in the past about how I deal with stress and depression on a daily basis. I thought about the issue for a long time-several months, in fact.

Most people have sources of stress in their environment. Mine comes from trying to juggle book schedules, outside work, and family needs all at the same time. Planting and harvest seasons often conflict with book needs and vice-versa. Not meeting all of my requirements can lead to depression. Every person faces these sorts of issues and I’m not any different.

Under normal circumstances, someone can turn to friends or find other ways to deal with their problems. I use these same techniques myself. A good friend is the best balm to heal a crushed spirit. They can even give you some invaluable advice along the way and they may even have ideas that you’ve never thought of before, like deciding to buy CBD oil in your area to help relieve any stressful emotions that you’re experiencing. There are so many ideas that are available for you to try, and leaning on your friends for moral support is one of the best things that you can do. However, I also rely on other techniques that you could find helpful, which is the emphasis of my post today. In order to deal with these issues I use my MIND:

  • Meditation and Yoga: I’ll spend time talking with God or focusing on the beauty around me. Sometimes it helps to count the wonderful things in my life or to see that a single bad thing isn’t nearly problematic when viewed from the perspective of twenty good things. To meditate in this way means turning one’s thoughts outward and seeing the world outside the gloom of the current turmoil. I also like to do yoga whenever I get the chance. It helps me relax and it’s a great form of exercise too. I’ve found an online yoga teacher training 2020 course that looks interesting and I would love to be able to teach yoga for my full-time job. If you haven’t tried either meditation or yoga as a way to deal with stress, I highly recommend you do so.

  • Immersion: Focusing all my attention on some positive activity often helps me forget about the problems I’m having for a while. Often, my subconscious mind will continue to work on the problem and by the time I’ve finished the positive activity, I have an answer for the issue that’s causing stress. Immersing myself in something and then seeing a successful result helps create a positive environment in which to work on the issue that is causing stress. Often, I find that a creative activity works best because I can get so fully immersed in it that I don’t even think about anything outside of that activity.

  • Negation: You have a stressful event that’s causing depression. Negating that feeling-the feeling of helplessness, is essential. I often fight these feelings by doing something good for someone else. It doesn’t have to be much. Sometimes something as simple as a kind word is more than enough. Again, it’s a matter of turning my thoughts outward. Seeing the pleasure that the positive act brings to the other person makes me happy too.

  • Distraction: Sometimes you need to forget about your problems for a while. A positive activity can distract you long enough to help you break the grip of the depression that holds you in its grip. The positive activity need
    not be work-related. In fact, for me it often involves doing something with my
    lovely wife (seeing a movie, taking a walk, playing a game, or going
    fishing). Freeing your mind of activity helps relax you and can bring a sense of relief in a stressful situation.

When you have a problem, you can use your MIND to reduce your stress about it. You don’t have to do anything that costs money, involves lots of time, and is essentially inconvenient. Look for obvious avenues of turning your mind outward, doing something good for someone else, and generally focusing attention on something positive to free yourself. My techniques may or may not work for you, but they have been effective for a few others I’ve shared them with. If you have a serious problem with depression or stress though and you can’t resolve it on your own, I encourage you to seek the help you need. Life is too short to live it in pain.

Keeping Track of Maintenance Costs

It’s spring and that means doing all of the start-up work for the summer. It also means you need to get all your gardening equipment out and make sure they’re still working! This is why it’s always best to buy high-quality machinery because, after months of being left in a cold shed, you don’t want to spend ages trying to repair them for you to use. For example, a lawnmower like the greenworks 25012 would be a good option as it has an engine that offers solid, dependable power without being too bulky.

And this is one of the issues that you need to address as part of being self-sufficient – maintenance. Every piece of equipment requires some sort of maintenance. Whether it’s your garden strimmer, zero turn mower, greenhouse or shed. Even the common spade requires maintenance in the form of sharpening (you do sharpen your spade, don’t you?). When you calculate how much you’re earning from your self-sufficiency efforts, you must consider maintenance costs. These costs come in several forms:

  • Parts
  • Consumables (such as oil and rags)
  • Personal Time
  • Third Party Support (such as when you take your equipment to the shop)
  • Down Time (when the equipment is unavailable for use)


Trying to assign a dollar figure to many of these areas is difficult. In some cases, you must make a guess. For example, you buy a box of shop grade paper towels to use as rags. Some of them are used for painting, some when you change the oil in your lawn mower, and some for spills. It’s incredibly hard to come up with a precise dollar amount for each use, so you must make an estimate and go from there. Of course, the total of your estimates should equal the actual cost of the rags. To make things harder, you may use old clothes for rags, which means that you have no basis on which to make a guess. Obviously, your worn, frayed pants turned into rags have little value, but they do have some value.

The problem becomes even more complex when you consider that some equipment is multipurpose. In order to account for maintenance costs, you need to assign them to a specific area of your self-sufficient lifestyle. For example, you may know that your hourly wage for growing green beans is $8.00 based on my Calculating an Hourly Wage post. Just how much is this wage reduced by the maintenance performed on a tiller used to till the soil in the spring? The tiller is also used to till the remainder of the garden, so at some point, you have to make an estimate of the maintenance costs for green beans in particular if you want to provide a precise accounting.

By now, some of you are probably wondering whether I’m a bit insane. After all, what do these costs matter? One of the motivators for being self-sufficient is knowing that, on some level, you’re saving money-that you truly are earning some amount each hour. People have ended up spending everything they earn, and even exceeding their earnings, by performing maintenance in the wrong way. For example, it’ll cost you in excess of $40 in most cases to have someone maintain your lawn mower. By following the simple instruction in the lawn mower’s manual, you can usually accomplish the task for around $10. The $30 difference in maintenance costs can mean the difference between earning something for your efforts and losing money. So sometimes it just makes more sense for you to purchase your own lawn mower, and look after your lawn by yourself. You can easily check out something like the best rated cordless lawn mower by YardMasterz here to give you a better idea of how easy it is to look after your lawn properly, without hiring someone to help you.

There is another good reason to calculate the maintenance costs (at least, within reason). When it comes time to get a new tool (motorized or not), knowing the maintenance costs and understanding how often a tool breaks down can help you make smarter buying decisions. A tool that sees use once a year is probably not a good candidate for an expensive upgrade. On the other hand, when you find that a tool breaks down a little too often because it’s not designed to take the level of use you need, an upgrade may make sense.

Maintenance costs can tell you something else. You’ll find that certain brands of machinery are quite expensive to maintain, even if you buy the parts yourself. Knowing how much it costs to maintain certain brands of machinery can help you decide between tool vendors. A vendor may charge a little more at the outset, but if you save a considerable amount on maintenance costs, the additional purchase price is worth it. You could source certain items like transmission clutch parts for heavy machinery from K&L if you find them to provide the parts you need at competitive prices.

Keeping track of maintenance costs is an essential element of self-sufficiency. You don’t have to become absurdly accurate, but well-informed estimates are essential. Create and maintain a log of your maintenance costs so you have a better idea of precisely how much you’re spending for each of the items you grow. These maintenance costs may actually change the items you grow because some items are prone to high maintenance costs. Let me know your thoughts on maintenance costs at [email protected].

Alarming New Obesity Statistics

I monitor statistics related to the overall health of Americans because I’m concerned about how my fellow Americans are faring. It’s one of the reasons I include self-sufficiency posts in my blog—to help others gain insights into making their health better and to get paid for doing it. One article I read recently tells me outright that there is a long way to go. According to a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 42 percent of Americans will become obese by 2030. There is a price tag associated with this statistic—an increase in health care costs of $550 billion dollars—that’s billion, with a B.

The increase in weight will cause problems with diabetes, a particularly nasty disease that isn’t given nearly enough respect. Imagine the sugar in your bloodstream becoming akin to ground glass. That’s the effect of diabetes on your system. Diabetes slowly, mercilessly, destroys your heart, kidneys, nervous system, eyes, and other organs. Of course, there are other behaviors that can affect your heart, but of all of the things that can go wrong, diabetes is possibly the worst. So, losing weight isn’t about fitting into nicer clothes or impressing your friends—it’s about living a happier, more productive, life.

More than a few people have asked me why I’m so concerned (other than the monetary amounts involved). At one point in time, I
looked at myself in the mirror and decided that there really was too
much of me to love. Not only that, but I was starting to suffer some of
the health problems associated with being overweight and decided I
really couldn’t live like that anymore—I was right, I really couldn’t
live like that. It’s not that I’m even sort of skinny today, but I have
lost 165 pounds since Rebecca and I started our drive to become
self-sufficient (all without dieting). That means I’ve gone from being morbidly obese to simply overweight. I feel better now, but I remember how I felt with the additional weight and I know that it wasn’t the nicest way to feel. For many people, it seems as if there is no way out, but the approach I’ve taken does help.

It’s the easiest thing in the world to say that someone should do something because it’s good for them. Doctors do it all the time (because we pay them to do it). It’s quite another thing to admit to yourself that your quality of life has diminished and you really need to do something about it. However, even after you decide to do something about it, succeeding is harder still because there are so many conflicting sources of information online. I’m not going to say that my method will work for you. In fact, I imagine that many people would find my approach outrageously difficult. However, I followed these principles to lose the weight that I have.

 

  • Exercise every day by growing my own food and cutting my own wood. Workouts at the gym are boring and non-productive. Growing my own food is interesting and nothing beats the heat from a wood stove.
  • Eat a higher quality of food. Growing my own food means that I can avoid pesticides and other contaminants more often. I can also pick my food at the right time, rather than when it’s best for marketing purposes. Plus, growing my own food pays me to spend time to grow the food, rather than buy it from the store where it costs quite a bit.
  • Eat a wide variety of food. Rebecca and I don’t eat just meat and potatoes. It seems as if we’re always trying something different. During a typical week we’ll eat broccoli, Brussels sprouts, green beans, corn, kohlrabi, cabbage, beets, spinach, tomatoes, okra, carrots, apples, pears, cherries, plums, and many other items—all grown in our garden and orchard. For meat, we eat rabbit and chicken we raise, deer that a friend shoots for us, and fish we catch at a local lake.
  • Reduce my stress level. Living as I do helps me deal with stress better. If I’m having a stressful day, I get rid of the stress by chopping wood. Believe me, after a few hours in the woods, there is no more stress.
  • Eat smaller meals more often. I replaced my plate with a smaller plate. The rule is that if it doesn’t fit on the plate, it doesn’t go in my mouth. There are no seconds and since I’ve been eating better, I seldom crave them.


Nowhere do I mention doing anything weird or uncomfortable in this list. I tried more than a few diets and none of them worked because none of them are lifestyle changes. They’re all cheats designed to lose a little weight, fast. The only way to effectively lose weight and keep it off is to make some sort of lifestyle change. You need to decide that you’re tired of your old self and that you want something better before any change you try will work. Let me know your thoughts about the plight of the American waistline at [email protected].

 

Considering the Costs of Rushing

I read a blog post entitled, “Could You Speed That Up a Little?” written by my friend, Bill Bridges yesterday with great interest. In this case, Bill is discussing a book entitled, “Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything.” I haven’t personally read the book, but I could readily identify with a number of Bill’s comments about the motive for writing such a book. We live in a sound bite society. Nothing goes fast enough-everything must be compressed and people multitask to satisfy an ever increasing need for speed. Bill focuses on the book for the most part, but the inspiration for this post comes near the end of his post where he says, ‘I was amazed to learn that some microwave users, told to zap something
for 90 seconds, have learned to fudge by hitting the “8” button twice,
thus saving the nanosecond involved in going from “9” to “0.”‘

Something in me disdains the saving of a nanosecond for the inaccuracy for cooking something for two less seconds. Of course, people take shortcuts all of the time. In many cases, these shortcuts don’t result in any serious negative effects. I don’t imagine that cooking something two seconds less in a microwave is going to cause a problem unless you’re performing some sort of exotic experiment or cooking something that’s especially sensitive. However, the inaccuracy remains.

The post caused me to think about the whole business of rushing everything. If our society is changing due to all of this rushing about, what sorts of side-effects might we expect? Where will our society go? How will everyone be affected? I wrote down a list of the things that we might see changed as a result of living in a sound bite world.

 

  • Stress Related Health Problems will Increase: Rushing causes stress. Constant stress causes certain physiological changes. It’s not a matter of if you’ll be affected, but when you’ll be affected. In order to live a healthy lifestyle, you need to learn how to slow down and relax a little.

  • Small Inaccuracies Tend to Accumulate: Anyone involved in any sort of technical field needs to consider the effect of rushing, of taking shortcuts, on the accuracy of output. Every article I’ve read on the subject of improving accuracy focuses on the need to set aside additional time up front to reduce errors that cause delays in the end. However, the effects of shortcuts can affect anyone. Drivers often find out too late that a seemingly reasonable shortcut results in an accident. Moreover, there are no doubts about it, car accidents can have devastating consequences. Of course, no one likes to think too much about being injured on the road, but it is important to remember that if ever you are involved in a car accident and you suspect that another driver was responsible then you might want to seek legal advice from an attorney. Personal injury law can seem complex and therefore it is always best to get help from an expert. It is not just driving that rushing can have a negative impact on though. Even the environment is affected by bad decisions that come from rushing. The most prominent effect of rushing and the resultant inaccuracies is that you’ll spend more money to obtain less worthwhile results.

  • Reduction of Personal Pleasure: It doesn’t matter how you’re rushing or in what environment you rush-when you rush you reduce the pleasure derived from that activity. The sad fact is that rushing affects everything from eating a delicious meal to making working meaningful. Multitasking makes matters worse because now you’re not even paying full attention to the activity. When the world goes by in a blur, it’s hard to define what you’ve done, why you’ve done it, and what you’ve gotten out of it.


There are probably other negative side effects, but even considering these three side effects should make you think twice about the world we’re creating. When was the last time you were honestly able to say that you fully enjoyed an activity? When was the last time you finished a task (personal or business) and were able to take pride in the results? Whether you’re writing code, playing with your pets, or taking time with your sweetie, consider focusing on that single activity and spending the time required to participate in it fully. Yes, you’ll find that you get fewer things done, but you’ll also find that the tasks you do complete are more enjoyable and done better. Let me know your thoughts about our sound bite world at [email protected].

 

Self-Sufficiency and the Store

I’ve written quite a few times about the health and monetary benefits of self-sufficiency at any level (see my Health Benefits of Self-Sufficiency and Health Benefits of Self-Sufficiency (Part 2) posts for details). It’s even possible to put a dollar amount on your self-sufficiency endeavors (see Calculating an Hourly Wage for details). Of course, not everyone can produce as much of their own food as we do, but I encourage you to produce as much as you can. I’ve been reading more and more articles online, like the one entitled “8 Food frauds on your shopping list” that tell me that your local store may be undermining your efforts to eat well. In this article, you discover that the milk you just bought could actually be causing problems like kidney stones because it contains melamine. In addition, there are all sorts of problems with food contamination. Reports such as “How safe is your grocery store?” give me pause when considering any sort of food purchase. Certainly, reading articles like this have significantly changed our buying habits for the small number of luxury items we purchase each year. They should affect your buying habits too.

At one time, most stores received the majority of their products from local sources. If you bought a steak, it probably came from a beef cow that was butchered and processed locally—perhaps from a neighbor who raised beef cattle. The same held true for all sorts of items—vegetables and fruits alike. The items you purchased from the store had a lower carbon footprint because they didn’t involve transportation over long distances. In addition, these items were fresher; many of them were never even frozen. During this time, it was actually possible to trace a source of problem food directly to the grower because the grocery knew the grower and what kinds of products the grower produced. Our food was considerably safer as a result.

Three things have happened to make the day of locally grown food pass into history. First, people have developed a taste for a wider variety of foods. This isn’t necessarily a bad idea because variety does tend to help create a better diet, but the cost has been felt on a global scale in the increase of everything from pesticide use to increased greenhouse gasses. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether breathing contaminated air and drinking poisoned water is really worth the health benefits of a diverse diet. Add to your calculations the chances that the food you’re eating is something other than advertised because your store may misrepresent the product to you in order to make a sale.

Second, people have placed price as their first (and sometimes only) criterion for making a food purchase. Locally grown food is sometimes more expensive than the food you can obtain from another location. Gone is the day where the grocery store owner knew precisely who grew what in the store. Today you can ask your butcher where a piece of meat comes from and you’ll receive a shrug (at best) for your efforts. The apple you’re eating could come from Washington, but it could just as easily come from some other country. There really isn’t a good way to know.

Third, governments have placed an emphasis on the global economy for various reasons. You get goods from overseas in many cases because the government has decided that you’ll get those goods for political reasons. A trade pact may require America to buy so many items from China in exchange for some other concession. I’ve written before about the global economy (see Considering the Inefficiency of a Global Economy for details). From my perspective, unless another country truly does own the market for a particular product, using locally grown or produced items makes far more sense and using these local items (even if they cost more) would significantly reduce our global pollution problems, not to mention making the local economy work better.

Whether you agree with me on these issues or not, it’s still a matter of choosing whether you’ll continue to buy products of dubious quality and origin. Besides becoming more self-sufficient, you can take control of your food sources by going to a local farmer’s market or choosing to spend more at smaller stores where the grocer actually does know the source of the food that the store sells. Yes, you’re going to pay more for the food you buy this way and it may not always be convenient to obtain the variety of food that you want, but the food you eat will be higher quality and less susceptible to contamination. When you do encounter a problem with your food, you can actually do something about it.

When is the last time you chose quality over price? Are you spending time thinking about what you eat and whether the food is actually good for you? Let me know at [email protected].

 

Considering the Fracus Over E-book Pricing

There is currently a debate raging over e-book pricing. The charge is one of price fixing and the debate affects all book publishers. Even though the press has focused on Apple as the target of the DOJ investigation, the lawsuit also affects five other publishers:
Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster. Of these six defendants, three have settled with the DOJ: Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster and Hachette. Any time vendors collude to set prices at a specific level in order to improve profits its price fixing. The law is blind as to the reasons behind the price fixing, engaging in this practice is simply against the law for any reason.

The supposed point of the lawsuit is to restore competition to the market, but more than a few people see the opposite happening if the DOJ is successful. There is a fly in the ointment—Amazon. It seems that Amazon has actually been pricing e-book content at a loss in order to promote the Kindle, which has placed the publishers in an unenviable position of losing money in order to remain competitive. Healthy debate on the topic is probably the best course of action until all of the facts come to light, but debate of this sort seldom occurs. Some industry pundits are wondering whether Amazon should be part of the lawsuit as well. A few have come outright as said that Amazon is more of a problem than the publishers for these reasons:

 

  • The lawsuit will hurt professional authors financially.
  • A decrease in compensation will end up closing smaller bookstores.
  • After Amazon buries the competition, buyers will be hurt by the resulting monopoly.
  • Lower book prices will adversely affect the quality of content available to readers.
  • Amazon already uses the same model as the publisher do, but hasn’t been named in the lawsuit.

At issue here is one of fairness and eventual results. It’s not fair for the DOJ to pursue price fixing for some actors in this situation and not others. If the DOJ is serious about fixing the current problems with competition in the e-book market, then it really does need to do something about Amazon. Otherwise, the result will be a monopoly that will hurt everyone and prove incredibly expensive to fix. More importantly, professional authors already make little money for their efforts—squeezing them further will definitely result in a loss of the incredible wealth of professional authors available today. Fixing the problems in the market will prove considerably more easy than trying to reestablish the author base used to write books when they become completely unprofitable.

Perhaps this will eventually work out in an unexpected way. This may be yet one more nail in the coffin that is currently killing books as a means for exchanging information. The interactive tools that are being developed for use with books may eventually take over and everyone will use them for all sorts of training. However, these tools are currently in their infancy and authors like me are only now beginning the build the expertise required to use them. In the meantime, it’s important that the DOJ take appropriate actions to ensure true competition in the marketplace.

What is your take on this issue? Do you even read books anymore to obtain information or do you rely on some other source? Let me know at [email protected].