Dana Blankenhorn

Designer Deer, Designer Dogs

I am proud and humbled to present my first guest blogger, Robin Blankenhorn (left, on the right with her parents). 

Despite the lack of family resemblance between us (she is much better looking than I am) Robin is indeed my daughter. She was born February 21, 1988 at Piedmont Hospital here in Atlanta, and I remember that day like it was yesterday. 

This month, Robin became a graduate of Texas A&M Kingsville (Go Javelinas), an agriculture major in range and wildlife sciences with a minor in English. She wants to make her career in urban wildlife policy, a class called "human factors" at TAMUK, and is presently researching the space, seeking an opportunity. If you have one, or just want to comment about this piece, drop her a note.

----

A friend of mine who graduated with me from college in Texas this month is an avid hunter. She loves hunting and the meat that she and her husband get.

(The picture, of deer who could not survive in a natural world, is from a deer breeder, RRA Ranch in Mingus, Texas.)

She also owns a Labradoodle. It’s part of a mindset that needs changing.

Mark Twain, Tech Writer

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 20 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

---

Mark Twain's been gone for over a century now, but his work still leaves a mark.

He was considered America's premier writer for much of his life, and remains our most famous. He worked from the unusual position of humor, but produced some of the most profound classics of the American page.

It's well-known that he liked technology. He wrote “Huckleberry Finn” on a typewriter, which was technology in the 1870s. He lost a fortune on a typesetting machine, which was the minicomputer of the 1880s. He ran his own publishing house and pioneered the selling of books by subscription. And he wasn't shy about any of it, which is a lesson more writers should take to heart.

But what I didn't realize until reading his autobiography  recently was just how much of a technophile he really was.

The Renewable Energy Sweet Spot is Storage

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 17 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

---

 

While most attention in renewable energy is focused on solar panels, or wind turbines, or the use of pine pellets and algae for fuel, the real sweet spot is in storage.

Imre Gyuk , energy storage program manager at the Department of Energy, says it's not just because solar and wind are intermittant. It's also because an increasingly computer-driven society requires cleaner power.

You know this in your own life. If you have a desktop PC, chances are you have a Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) sitting under your desk, or at least a “power conditioning” power strip next to you – maybe both. Spikes can damage critical components.

News Sites Play Hide the Pickle

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 16 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

---

Throughout the Web, the information with the highest cost and lowest return is news.

For me to appear at an event in person, I have to get dressed, get there, stay there, and get back home. It's a full day production. It keeps me from doing anything else.

The problem is that all this effort doesn't bring me any more page views than I'd get from just picking the story off the wire and commenting on it. Less, because I'm not a major news player.

The problem I face is exponentially greater for the major news player. Everyone links to the first person with the story, sometimes with credit but more often not, and the number of page views the first-mover gets may be relatively small. This isn't all bad. Often, the best story is the one that is well-considered, that brings in other facts, that's researched with links and thought through before it's published.

As a result, news sites have been engaged in a growing game I call hide the pickle.

Round Two of the Copyright Wars

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 13 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

---

I have been following the copyright wars since their inception, in 1997. I watched the passage of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) in 1998, and the No Electronic Theft Act.

Both had a similar aim, to keep people from stealing making and re-selling copies of material subject to copyright, now that technology allowed for clean (or nearly clean) copies.

My sympathies here are purely with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and blogs like Boingboing, which hate these laws as attacks on freedom of speech, of association, and the free exchange of ideas.

Time Is Money And Money Is Time

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 12 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

---

All the talk about the price of content misses the point.

Content has a price, always. Whether you're reading content, listening to it, or watching it on a screen, the price is your time.

Time is the most valuable asset any of us have. Our time is limited. We must spend big hunks of it sleeping, eating, and traveling. We spend a third or more of our time making the money we need to sustain us.

What's left, the time available for content, is thus very precious.

I got a clue on this when I received an Amazon Kindle Fire for Christmas. I'd gotten Amazon Prime for the cheap shipping, thus I suddenly had access to all sorts of “free” content. Lots of TV shows I missed, lots of movies. Too many, it turns out. When I try to catch up on a series I thought I'd like, I find I'm taking time away from reading I could be doing.

Graphene and the Nature of Change

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 9 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

---

Change can be slow, and change can be sudden.

Those who practice the theory of “oh noes,” the idea that it's all about to go pear-shaped, either see slow change that can't be undone, or a sudden change that others see as unlikely.

The people I meet on Seekingalpha.com, the ones who are certain that we're about to go into another Great Depression, believe in sudden change. Those who talk about climate change tend to see slow change that can't be undone.

But most of the time, disaster does not strike. And sudden change can be good as well as bad.

This is one of the great things about being a science reporter, the idea that someone, somewhere, might suddenly come up with a mighty idea, one that will drive out big problems at a stroke.

Tax Carbon in the Name of Growth

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 7 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

---

The following is going to annoy my liberal friends, but hear me out.

The decisive turn in a generation's political thesis, which is a collection of myths and values driving power, the point at which you go from winning elections to winning them for a generation, comes when business moves to your side.

You don't need all of business. You only need the rising tide of business to be on your side, that element of business driving economic growth.

Without significant business support, your side of the political world is always swimming upstream. That's because the business of America is business, even its political business is business, and anyone who questions that doesn't know America. (This Rising Tide is a restaurant in Scarborough, Maine. We hear good things about the lobster.)

Learn This Medium

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 3 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

---

There are lots of stories written about how “young people” are “clueless” about using the Internet.

These often feature pictures left on Facebook of people being young and stupid. Young and stupid are sort of synonomous.

But it's true. People have been fired from jobs, or lost an opportunity for advancement, because some biddy saw something they wrote or said online that, in the clear light of day, they probably should not have written, said, or had photographed.

I would hope that, over time, as this medium becomes a natural, normal part of growing up, we might be more forgiving of this. The whole argument is pretty stupid.

Depth Beats Breadth in the Internet News Game

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 2 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

---

 Wonder why I'm not rich, if I'm so smart?

It's because, as a reporter, I'm a polymath. My knowledge is a mile wide and an inch deep.

Journalism is my home because it lets me skip around from beat-to-beat depending on what interests me. Even for a journalist I'm not rich, for just that reason. Most journalists stick with one area, developing deep expertise, becoming pundits in those areas of expertise. I don't. I research an area and, once I decide I'm finished with it, I take my journalistic skill set and go somewhere else.