Even Paranoids Have Enemies

Forgot to add some comments about the book "Internal Combustion" by Edwin Black (don't buy it Karen, you can have my copy when I'm done). 408 pages of text, only 316 is text, the rest is typical paranoid thinking that if you can document 2 words in an 3 word sentence, people will believe. Well, if the sentence is "Fred killed Tom", and you can prove Fred exists, and Tom exists, does that prove the assertion? Not really. In one chapter, a reporter is murdered by the subject of a muckraking article he is working on. Though the muckraking has little or nothing to do with the books premise (please see Amazon.com for a description) the murder is given front and center status, in hopes of the reader making a leap from logic to fantasy.

But you know, forgetting about the paranoia rampant in this book, there are nuggets of truth. His description of the current state of the ethanol industry is fascinating, as has his descriptions of how the early electric cars slowly disappeared. Unfortunately, he forgets about Thomas Edison's fatal mistake (choosing DC versus AC for his power distribution system) which would have doomed his dream of electric cars, and without distribution, electric cars will not exist.

In short, it's really too bad to see an author with a great concept (the electric car did not die a natural death, like the steam car did, but was murdered) get so obsessed with the conspiracy aspects that he ignores the facts that would back him up, without appearing to be a conspiracy nut. There is much good in this book, unfortunately, it is intertwined with stories to nowhere, and looking for "reds under the beds" type thought. I will say this, you can't help but yearn for an electric car after reading this.

BTW, for a better read, try "The Ghost Map" by Steven Johnson. If you ever heard of the Broad Street Pump, you will amazed at the REAL story, and if you haven't, you will be amazed at how the infrastructure in our cities started, and why. He starts out a little crass for my tastes (I prefer feces to sh_t) but when the story really gets started, it's a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, surrounded by a powerful misconception. Great book!

Ramblin on

This will meander for a bit, not quite sure what I want to say. I'm working for my upteenth startup, and it suffers from the same disease of all the other startups. In the face of cold hard facts, the powers that be, or at least a significant number of them, blithely go on with the original plans. Why worry that NOBODY wants or needs your product? Why worry about quality when there are stylistic issues to be handled? Grrrr...I'll get over it.

Then there is the coy coworker trying to hide she is having a long distance relationship. Lady, I really don't care who, where or when you get your jollys, so please don't waste my time torn between giggling and acting sober when you are dancing around the fact you are going to get laid this weekend after a long plane flight. Been there, done that, and not ashamed at all, why are you?

The reaction to the bridge disaster in Minneapolis really pisses me off. Excuse me, you asses who voted 20 million dollars for bicycle paths in RI, and over $250,000,000 for a bridge between two underpopulated places in Alaska, maybe, just maybe, you should better spend the BILLION's you pissed away on earmarks, rather than raise gas taxes, which will only be used for even MORE earmarks.

I see NASA dodged a bad one, letting the space shuttle land with tile damage. Haven't heard about the impact on shuttle turnaround yet, sure they will wait until we forget about this flight before telling us about frame damage. I don't blame them, their VSE is based around the external tank structure, if it is fatally flawed (and it is) they won't have a VSE. I remember a ST:TNG episode where Data and Troi are analyzing Rikers tactical approaches. After much over analysis by Data, Troi reminds him that in the end, he is the man he is, or as Popeye would say, "I'samwhatsIam".

OK, enough of a rant for now. Be back soon.