Analog Data Enterprises

Breakfast with the Anthropologists

2012 Bay Area

There have been 4 Earthquakes in San Francisco during an Economic Downturn. During one of the 2 hour transportation interuptions, I was able to find food for $5.00, but the items were all imported from ouside the city. The city currently has no sustainable food hydroponics solutions, or farmer's markets based upon hydroponics. A lot of shops have been boarded up. On one breakfast search I use a Zagat guide to San Francisco. What is a commute for a rock star slacker anyway? Where is it that I need to go to?
Research by Chris Bertram
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The Risk Society and the 21st Century.

Chris Bertram

041510

Most people who have kept up with Humanities, in general in the last few years have heard the term Post Industrial. What is this High Brow term and what is meant by it and when people weald this, especially people who we have felt have the capacity to really fling  the term with vigor – what do they mean?
We are seeing the results of a society who have lived through the first vestiges of the so called Industrial Revolution. That is no small incident. It changed the way villages were laid out in terms of placement of housing. People wanted to live away from the pollution of the industry. You had the Butcher, the Baker, and the Cobblestone maker in the town square but the Blacksmith was placed with reckless abandon, in the outskirts of town in an industrial park.
As an anthropologist, when digging up the latest lost city, you find all of the above aspects in the town square except when looking through our industrial society digs. Our civilization in unique in the entire world and it’s not just talking in a bar. No one will argue the counter point that we have not changed the world with our technology.
We have arrived at the point when as a species we change, effect, and stop nature in all aspects. This becomes the realm of the risk society. Now everything is in terms of an insurance formula for occurrences of events that have consequences that we care about.
When all of the banks failed, and nothing happened, not a thing, the thing that propped us up, were the insurance companies and their investments. The insurance companies were standing there holding the bag like children caught stealing cooking from the cookie jar – they had already been ready for everything by formula divination.

Risk Society?

Chris Bertram

041210

There are indications that banks failing and unemployment may result in a change in society. What would occur if the banks just failed? Insurance companies seem to be doing well, in fact Berkshire Hathaway stocks are hovering around $100,000.00 per share. This may result in a type of risk or gambling society where the government just hands out free cheese and the insurance companies hand out a voucher for the year to spend any way you want at your doctor's office. You could save up your voucher for a type of assembly line cosmetic surgery after a couple of years. All of your money would go to insurance of one type of social program or another, but you wouldn’t need money because housing would be based upon a caste system of merit based upon technology and food would be given out like Soylet Green. A Computer Science Major in college would get the three bedroom condo while the Anthropologists would get the studio apartments. Seriously: there are Anthropologists who are looking very carefully at the numbers and determining what comes next. The book: Risk and Culture : An Essay on the Selection of Technical and Environmental Dangers -suggests that I am not far off in my statements. According to the above book two groups form opposite factions that square off essentially against environmental disasters. The rest is my summation on things to come.

Sap Story

Chris Bertram

021410

I just read that it takes 40 Gallons of sap to make 1 Gallon of maple syrup (Bon Appetit, 2010). Those pictures in my head of the tiny straws sticking out of the maple trees are not the true picture. With the above ratio it becomes clear that the whole tree is involved and even the water table becomes involved even for a small serving of maple syrup. There are 195,000,000 sexually active people in the United States. I don’t know what the diet of the other population includes - likely more fiber and less sugar. The other population doesn’t go to Starbucks or McDonalds or IHOP. The other population is still mad over Little Richard being under suspicion for homosexuality and that Chuck Berry was seen with a 14 year old girl, bringing her to his club to work as the hat check girl. They are still pissed over that one 14 year old girl. The other population doesn’t get Alternative music at all. If 195,000,000 people require 40 Gallons of sap that is 7.8 x 10 ^9 Gallons of sap from the maple trees for their 1 Gallon of syrup. That effects the water table of north America to the point of desert conditions because that is a huge number. I am assuming that the trees use xylem to draw water through cohesion up from their roots to get the volumes of water they are talking about. A realistic assumption would be that the 1 Gallon is used as an extract in a corn syrup brew and that the real syrup that the 195,000,000 people consume in their maple syrup fueled orgies are like 1 drop per 1 Gallon of maple flavored corn syrup brew. Then it becomes clear that on a massive scale corn is harvested to squeeze out enough corn syrup required for the 1 drop brew of maple to 1 Gallon corn syrup. There are 250 drops per cup. There are 4 cups in a quart and 4 quarts in a gallon. 250 x 4 x 4 = 4000 drops per gallon. For one Gallon of maple syrup extract from sap you can get 100 Gallons of maple flavored corn syrup brew. There are 1.95 x 10 ^6 gallons of sap required for 195,000,000 maple flavored corn syrup brew fueled sex orgies in north America. There are 1.95 x 10 ^6 gallons of sap required for the walk of shame breakfast at Denny’s for each “morning after” on Sunday morning’s vigil of coffee and ethanol binge drinking headache suffering people’s rail on global warming. The next time there are discussions on global warming on a Sunday morning, stop what your are doing and think about the sap you consume instead of the greenhouse gasses. Global warming people are not tree huggers. Global warming is a sap story.

Judging a Man by his Drink

Chris Bertram

120709

I am not talking about a man ordering a Gin and Tonic at a bar - we all know that only fags order that. What about that KISS song Cold Gin? They are a bunch of guys in make up and spandex. See..Seriously I am a KISS fan so they are exempt. Besides KISS back stage drinks Gin straight up. I am talking about men in the financial district ordering a Mocha with no whipped cream. What the hell is that? Come out of the closet fancy pants - get the whipped cream - you go girlfriend. That's just pretty fancy and mighty sweet - Mocha no Whip! I lived in Alaska where you throw the grounds in the cup and pour boiling water on it and wait for the grounds to settle - or maybe not...maybe I just drink the whole damn thing. So you could go to Berkeley where they know what a cup of French roast is - a long shot through the extractor using French roasted beans. National chains don't know what a long shot is. National chains don't put anything in the extractor except espresso beans - stupid. I go around thinking how everyone I see is stupid or a homosexual because they don't know how to order a drink or what to order. You get Jamaica Blue Mountain Beans, use the Turkish grind, and make long shots in the Espresso maker. I have urges to strangle any one who says "Expresso," what the hell is that? It is called E s p r e s s o. Managing Editor Bay Area Rock Magazine by: Chris Bertram

Chemistry Titrations

Chris Bertram