Random fact about Ari #121: She has a piece of pottery associated with each lover.

I know far too many people who were convinced they have mental health problems, and quite likely are just different.

I know far too many people who have mental health problems that they can’t get help for.

All too often these are the same people.

I spent the end of the afternoon today poking around the operations of a three-quarter megawatt hydroelectric generator with Ethan and Eric and my sister. It’s the oldest operating hydrogenerator in Colorado — the main turbine and generator were manufactured (in gorgeous cast iron, I might add) in 1902. They sit in a little generator shack next to the Uncompahgre river. 30 cubic feet of water per second, generating around seventeen and a half amps at 4,000 volts.

They don’t make equipment like this anymore: floating, oil-filled bearings (which need refilling with oil periodically), painted cast iron casings, heavy, gorgeous, sculpted equipment that will probably run another hundred years if kept in good working order. The newer generators aren’t nearly so interesting — sheet metal and a plastic-coated flywheel give a utilitarian but not at all grand look. The big generator has a turbine about the size of a medium-sized car, and the generator is a pancake-shaped piece about 6 feet tall, with the requisite coils set inside. It spins at about 1200 RPM, meaning that with a three-phase generator, that matches up to producing 60 hertz electricity in relatively good synchronization with the rest of the western US’ energy grid.

I could feel the magnetic field in the room. Leaving gave my muscles a much-needed relax, and my ears as well.

Good news: Taxes done.

Bad news: Owe $4,000

Good news: That’s $1000 less than I thought

Bad news: But that doesn’t include the $1000 for this quarter

Good news: I can defer the business tax until September, since I’m going for an off fiscal year

Bad news: Done a day later than I wanted to be.

Good news: GOTO 10.

Goodnight!

I can play a decent imitation of “Coin-operated Boy” on the cello. The Dresden Dolls are amazingly fun to play along to. I think when I’m not trying to coerce my brain into reading music at a good clip, I’ll be playing along there.

Vruba should do something like this. It would come out so good.

Today, I let the universe know that lasagne can, in fact, be eaten with chopsticks.

You know the feeling when you finally get a C program to compile, and you feel that you must have your program right? Test-driven development must feel like that.

It’s not that I dislike LJ quiz thingies. It’s that I feel compelled to make them into valid XHTML.

Why the hell to I schedule appointments for first thing in the morning on a Saturday during tax season!?

I am nearly finished with my taxes. I got most of my income figures today. Tomorrow: Correlate with bank account, double-checking, then see if I missed stuff. If not, do the actual tax forms. Sad when that’s the easy part, eh?

Thinking about socialism, I realized that my beliefs can be summed up easily: Socialism must be a social force. It can’t be legislated without the full will of the people. Keeping that will afterward, too, means that it has to work in the best interests of that society, too, or it will fail.

A society is more likely to be in tune with its laws if the regions the laws govern are small. A country as vast as the United States is currently is legally top-heavy: It has many distinct regions with distinct cultures. No law fits all of them easily. What few pass the muster are little more than the Bill of Rights. Even within my state, there’s enough regional difference to cause strife. The uneven population base leans money toward the majority’s benefit, often to the detriment of those on the other side of the mountains, where the issues are different and none of the services the money has funded are available.

As a society, the US is amazingly rich. I think some socialism is the Right Thing, if only because things like malnutrition and most disease can be solved 100%. There’s no reason for any member of our society to be excluded. We can bring the base-line up. I don’t think all industry must be private — quite the opposite — but that human rights can be an ever increasing thing, not some ancient minimum that can never be altered.

Imagine if, today, in all grocery stores, the food were priced much as it is today. Except at the bottom of the shelves in the front are bags of beans, rice, oats … maybe even flour. Basics. Free. Just take some — there’s plenty, after all. It’s not glamourous, but one need not die of starvation even if completely without money. There is no qualifying, no need for tracking, and it’s basic enough and the value low enough that hoarding should be rare, and treated as the social disease it is, not as a high crime.

The ingenious may decide to save their cash and eat only basics. It may spur small-time industry and company start-ups, because one can always put food on the table while trying a new venture. Imagine being relatively poor, and saving the money your family spends on food. That goes a long way toward funding a new invention, a new business, or can just ease a financial tight spot. There would be no barrier to, tomorrow, simply not paying for food for a while while you get back on your feet, or found a way to be financially independent in the future. You won’t get rich just by eating beans and rice, but you may become independent.

Other things, the things that naturally form monopolies, particularly utilities, make perfect things to socialise. Power plants have little room to compete, and given a free market, will tend to play winner-take-all. Phone and internet service I am somewhat dubious of being socialised, because a driving force to improve is needed. With the right attitude, it too could be socialised.

I was given a calendar page saying:

Do what you want to do. . .

but want to do what you are doing.

Be what you want to be . . .

but want to be what you are.

P.S. I kissed her. It was nice.