Doomsday

Throughout history there have been hundreds if not thousands of predictions for the end of the world, yet it hasn't happened.  Everyone knows the silly 2012 Mayan doomsday assumption.  There are so many doomsday's throughout history, is it not surprising that people still fall for this stuff?  Perfectly (otherwise) sane people are looking to 2012 as some sort of end game.  This is truly ridiculous.

I, for one, think that the world will not end in some blinding flash.  If man disappears it is vastly more likely to our own stupidity than anything else.  This itself though, I equally find very unlikely.  It is against our nature to kill ourselves.  Nuclear warfare?  It probably won't happen.  And if it does, it probably won't be on a level that will kill end the species..

I think that we will continue on in one form or another.  Considering how far we have come in the past hundred and fifty years, and considering the pattern of technological advancement we have undergone during that period, I'm not sure that we will recognize what we will be if we indeed were able to see it.  No doubt, however, we will progress in either the short or long run.  The issues of overcrowding, corruption, greed, and so on that we see as pains for the mid-term future will not impact us as a species.  While these issues may impact some of us or most of us, they will not consume all of us in such a way that will inhibit progress in the next 100 years into the next 1000.  Of this, I am certain.  Man expects as a species a certain level of progress, with the general diversity of thought in the world, we would be hard-pressed to find any number of causes that together could end progress or halt advancement never mind a single issue.

Make Something of Me

I took all the right paths.  Good grades in high school.  Very focused.  Went to college.  Graduated.  Went back and graduated with a Master's degree.  I always did well in school.  I just "got it".  I was fairly well liked.  I tried to be a good person.  And so on.

That's taken me to a dead end.  No one wants to hire me.  No one.  There are no jobs.  None.  For all the preparation and hard work, there is nothing.  Sometimes I sit here and wonder what there actually IS for me.  What is there?

What am I the best at?  We're always told that everyone has a talent.  We see them all the time.  Actors, athletes, musicians, etc.  People with undeniable talent in something.  Well what is my talent?  What in me will make me happy?  

I sit on my ass all day, surfing the web and doing nothing.  I work sure, but it's a bullshit job.  Overworked, underpaid, disappointment is my new middle name.  What is there for someone who did everything they were told they needed to do to reach that platform above which all are successful and below which I currently reside?  What course of action can I take if all previous courses of action have led to nothing?

It's not so bad to fail at something, but to fail at THE thing?  My career path ends at a river with no bridge.  I can walk as far up and downstream as I want, still seeing my goal on the other side, but I'm unable to reach it.  There is no bridge.

 And what am I good at anyway?  Maybe I win a moral victory with "good at hardworking" but moral victories don't cash out into real victories.  And, I've tried several different roads too.  Education, management, writing, music...  All failures.  What is there left for me? I don't feel "good" at anything anymore.  I don't feel like I have a place in the world.  Am I doomed to shitty job after shitty job until I curl up and die?

How can I make something of myself if everything I've done so far has led to absolutely nothing?  Where do I even start?

The Death of Backyard Invention?

I suppose to some extent we should have surmised that this would happen.  That is, that the process of invention, by and large, becomes more cumbersome and more needing of resources as the inventions made become more complicated.  I could go home tonight and build a new model for a working toilet.  If I wanted to of course.  I don't.  Equally, if I went home tonight, and even if I needed to, never mind wanted to, I could NEVER build the next greatest computer chip.  It is physically impossible.  8, 10, 12 nanometers?  You lose me by a factor of a thousand at least.  You need to be a large corporation, with billions of dollars of equipment to be able to create then next big advances in computer chips.

The same is true for most things today.  All?  Not quite.  But most.  Certainly more so than ever before.  There's really nothing of consequence to the world today that I can improve, alter, build off of, or be inspired by that can lead to the invention of a new, amazing, hi-tech advancement.  Nothing.

So is it the dead of backyard invention?  Are we relegated now to hypotheses and Time Machine / Frankenstein types of literature?  Have we lost the ability to individually create and moved into a more collective, or "hive", humankind?  Is it possible to take an idea today and make something out of it?

For the vast majority of people the answer is an astounding no.  People do not, by and large, have that ability anymore.  We are blinded by the bright light of our current innovations and have not yet been able to fully wrap our heads around them.  Additionally, companies still hold valuable patents/copyrights on inventions that have come out in the past few decades.  Companies have the collective brain power and resources to do what was considered unimaginable just decades ago.  Yet, I fear we are losing something too.

I'll sit here now and then and be struck by amazing ideas.  Some of them could change the world.  Back in the day, with such an idea, you had a better chance, it seems, of being able to do something about it.  You didn't need to mobilize dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people to get it off the ground.  You could do it yourself.  But science and scientific research is changing.  There will be no DaVinci's or Wright brothers of the future.  Arguably there never were, but for chance.  A hundred thousand people try flight and two succeed.  Whereas today you have a hundred thousand working for the space program worldwide, and they all might eventually succeed at something.  Or they could fail.

There has to be something so simple, so intrinsically plain left that someone can create.  Imagine though, that the billions of minds that thought before you missed it.  You could be the only one to ever have had this idea and decided it was merit-worthy.  After billions of tries already, humankind still hasn't found something so simple?  No wonder we are seeing the death of backyard invention.  Is there that few simple ideas left to invent?

Don't Cut LIHEAP Funding!

US monthly propane Residential price (per gallon):

January 2004: $1.496
January 2007: $1.992
January 2011: $2.782

Increase from January 2004-January 2011: 86%





US monthly heating oil Residential price (per gallon):

January 2004: $1.566
January 2007: $2.369
January 2011: $3.431
Last month: $3.913

Increase from January 2004-January 2011: 119% (Until present: 150%)




US monthly natural gas Residential price (per thousand cubic feet):

January 2004: $9.71
January 2007: $12.17
January 2011: $9.76

Increase from January 2004-January 2011: 0.2%





US monthly electric Residential price (per kWh):

January 2004: $8.24
January 2007: $10.06
January 2011: $10.99

Increase from January 2004-January 2011: 33.4%

http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/query/mer_data.asp?table=T09.09


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Percent of LIHEAP Households Using Major Types of Heating Fuels, United States, April 2005

Natural gas
60.0%

Electricity
19.0%

Fuel oil
12.0%

Kerosene
2.4%

LPG
5.2%

Other2
1.2%

http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ocs/liheap/publications/liheap07rc.pdf

--------------------------


"The National Energy Assistance Directors' Association was set to announce February 9 that 8.9 million households are expected to qualify for financial help this winter, up from 8.3 million last winter."

http://liheap.ncat.org/news/feb11/record.htm

The amount of funding for 2011 is... $5.1 billion

In 2007 LIHEAP provided $2,467,475,108 in funds for 4,925,646 people

http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ocs/liheap/publications/liheap07rc.pdf


------------------------------

So onto analysis.... Home heating oil has risen the most over the past six-eight years. It was not triple as I said during the winter... although it is slightly higher than the 150% that it is in the winter during the summer months, of course you use less. Doubling the funding for heating assistance is a good thing and that shouldn't be belittled. However, with the costs of other things also going up, people are increasingly dependent on home heating oil assistance plans.

Funding per person in 2007 was $500.94 per person (dividing the money available by the number accepted to the program that year from above). However, there is overhead on the 2.4+ Billion funded in 2007 as well as assistance given for cooling and other issues... LIHEAP claims to have given an average of $265 per person for heating in 2007 or 53% of the funding available. (http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ocs/liheap/publications/liheap07rc.pdf, p.51)


If the same funding model holds true today (and it should), that means that using the same math but on this year's numbers... There is available $573.03 available per person before overhead (et. al.). After overhead and non-heat funding on the current model (47%) you are left with $303.71 per person this year.


NOW.... This is a 14.7% increase in funding over 2007!!


HOWEVER...

1. People using natural gas on LIHEAP (60%) have seen a 19.8% decrease in prices for a net gain of 24.5% in gov't aid.
2. People using electric heat on LIHEAP (19.0%) have seen a 9.245% increase in prices for a net gain of 9.76% in gov't aid.
3. People using propane heat on LIHEAP (5.2%) have seen a 39.66% increase in prices for a net LOSS of 24.96% in gov't aid.
4. People using oil heat on LIHEAP (12%) have seen a 44.83% increase in prices for a net LOSS of 30.13% in gov't aid.


So, data shows that the current rates of coverage for LIHEAP families has gotten better for those using natural gas and heat (79% ofL IHEAP homes). But, it is still lagging for the 17.2% of families that use either propane or oil heat.

Cuts in government aid will shrink the amount of money that each family gets. Some families are doing worse than they were in 2007, some are doing better. Either way, these cuts are going to hurt. Taking into account that food, health care, and so on also costs more than it did in 2007 and that wages are stagnant or have fallen (depending on industry) since then, that unemployment is still very high and a large number of people are out of unemployment insurance, ANY cut in funding for this vital program is detrimental to our LIHEAP Americans. Those who will be hurt most are those that use propane and heating oil. But everyone will still be hurt.