Four-Way

     It's not one of the listed ways you can get Steak'n'Shake chili, as far as I can tell -- they have chili three way and five ways, but four?  Forget that!*

     No, four-way is what a failed stoplight devolves to: if the light is out, absent other signage or someone directing traffic, the intersection becomes a four-way stop.  There are no significant exceptions to this rule.

     From my workplace, one of the city's major intersections is readily visible.  During rush hour (which runs from about four to six-thirty p.m., a long hour), the traffic light failed: power was out.  Our lights were flickering, but we have a big UPS and a generator; about all that happens is the lights blink, the vending machines go off and on, and our internet connectivity becomes variable--  Yeah, that last will be looked into today; it shouldn't happen.

     But this isn't about my office's lack of cute pet videos.  It's about what people did at a high-traffic, multilane intersection.  It wasn't pretty.  There were lots of near-misses, though no actual crashes.  People were zooming though as if the lack of a light meant "do your own thing!"  There were the ones who didn't even slow down, the rolling stops, the swerves and unsignaled turns; there were people sitting stopped for turn after turn, trying to understand it all.  There were even a few drivers who stopped their cars in the intersection!

     That's not how this works.  That's not how any of this works.  It's a question on the driving exam and the answer is, when the traffic light goes out, the intersection is to be treated as a four-way stop.

     Please.
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* However, Skyline Chili will fix you right up for four-way chili -- they have two different kinds of four-ways.  Which is confusing.

Into The Boreal Malestrom!

     Yeah, it's so cold my thesaurus is stuck.  Best-read of the terrific lizards, but even on a steady diet of steamy beach novels, they grind to a halt when the thermometer drops below zero. Which ours has.  Well below.

     It's so cold that the giant CFL "farm light" lighting my back yard (which replaced the old mercury-vapor after it gave up over the course of a cold winter) is putting out a dim fraction of its usual light.  It's so cold that a local TV station, in the heart of central steam-heated downtown Indianapolis* went out into their parking lot and showed the Polar explorer trick of tossing a mugful of boiling water into the air, where it instantly froze to snow.  (The utility is assiduous about controlling steam leaks but in cold weather, a careful  eye can usually spot one or two manholes in the service area emitting a plume of steam.  I'll bet those are interesting in the cold!)

     City trash pick-up and Federal mail has been cancelled for today and tomorrow and the various road projects underway are all on hold until the weather improves.  Indianapolis is nowhere near the heart of this cold, but like most of the continental U.S., we're seeing temperatures that have been -- so far -- once-in-a-lifetime.

     Be careful out there.  Better yet, don't go out there.  Temperatures will be in the fifties by the weekend.
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* Indianapolis has the second-largest steam utility system in the United States, delivering steam for heating and industrial purposes to businesses and residences in and near the"Mile Square" of downtown.  But good luck finding out much about it!  Currently, it appears to be run by Citizen's Energy Group, our public-trust gas and water utility, though as nearly as I can determine, the electric utility -- Indianapolis Power and Light at the time -- set it up in the 1920s and ran it for many years.  The steam is a byproduct of a generating station just south of downtown. which weaned itself off coal in 2014.  Presumably it burns natural gas now.  I have certain fondness for it; I lived for several years in a downtown apartment building on central steam heat, warm and a little noisy as air went knocking up the pipes.

Polar Vortex

     Most of the continental U.S. is getting hit by the Polar vortex,  No matter where you live, the next few days are going to bring cold temperatures hugely below the usual.

     It was quite cold when I drove to a writing class Saturday.  The Indiana Writer's Center has moved from their comfortable, costly quarters on the campus of the Indianapolis Art Center in Broad Ripple to the Circle City Industrial Complex, a vast space near trending Mass. Ave., filled with artists, makers and small businesses.*  My route takes me down College Avenue† and under the Inner Loop overpasses at 10th Street and there, right under the center lane, well to the back of the broad sidewalk, was a good-sized, clean-looking wall tent with a loaded shopping cart parked next to it.  The tent seemed to be bulging a bit, perhaps stuffed with insulating salvage.

     We've already been through one bad cold spell.  Homeless shelters were full to overflowing, but pledged to turn no one away.  Staffers interviewed on local TV pointed out there there were some homeless people who couldn't bring themselves to sleep in the shelter.  Too feral or cross-grained, so uncomfortable with the notion that they'd risk death by exposure rather than spend even a single night crowded into a warm shelter.

     Happy graphs like the ones I linked to yesterday only go so far.  There are people way over at the worse-than-poor end and many of them are not getting out.  It's cheap and easy to suggest they could if they just had the will; cheap, easy and untrue.  Some can't.  Some....won't.  And for some, about all you can do is take note.  It's not an easy life; it's dirty and difficult even in good weather.  In weather like this?  You hope they'll see another dawn.  And another, until the worst has passed.
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* Though much more recent, it's a bit like the Stutz, a former automobile factory that has been artist's studios and small business space for many years.  I suppose there's a limit to this kind of redevelopment, but Indy hasn't reached it yet.

† Which hasn't run by or through a college for two or three generations.  The street is where it has always been but they moved the college.

A Happy Set Of Charts

     In the course of a (civil) Facebook conversation, I found occasion to look up the definition of "Third World" as applied to nations.  What I found was not what I expected; rather than being about economic well-being or having a stable, free society, the Three Worlds were political alignments: the West as First, the Soviet Block as Second and the non-aligned countries were Third.

     This meaning has shifted rather a lot and my sources had different ideas about why and what the terms mean now.  But "Third World" is still not a synonym for "failed state" or "banana republic."

     In the course of the discussion at Wikipedia, a pair of charts showing "economic density" in 1970 and 2015 were presented. This is a measure of how well people are doing, population charted vertically, income horizontally, color-coded by continent, and it shows a positive shift:

   1970 has a distinct "double-hump" shape: over at one hump, well below the extreme poverty line, are the poor, mostly living in Asia and not living well; the other hump is the rich, mostly in the developed nations, doing very well indeed.

     2015 has no such structure.  There's one big hump, centered well above the extreme poverty line.  There are more people in the world of 2015 -- but far fewer of them are desperately poor.  (Sadly, most are in Africa, which does not appear to have made much progress since 1970).  Yes, the world still has plenty of hunger, but we have made progress,  Significant progress.

     Some people are richer than others.  Some are a great deal richer.  But humanity is increasingly not sorting itself into one bunch sleeping on silk and enjoying fresh-peeled grapes while another bunch longs for a discarded grape skin.  More people are getting enough to get by; more people are earning enough to move up, buy land, get educations, start small businesses -- and that's a good thing.

     Oh, it's a tall, tall hump on the 2015 chart and the people at the top of it enjoy luxury no Roman Emperor ever had.  But far more people than ever before finish their day with a full belly and a roof over their head.  There's doom and gloom on the mass media all day.  There are certainly things to worry about.  But humanity isn't quite as bad as we sometimes think.  Our vector sum is pointing in the right direction.  Let's keep moving that way!

Leftovers, Fried

     Fried rice:

     The rice is leftover from last night's Cajun delivery dinner; fried along with some soy sauce with vegetables from a "Geek Salad" deli medley from the day before yesterday -- red and yellow bell peppers, cherry tomato, zucchini, red onion and black olive -- plus bacon, some leftover corned beef, and two eggs, one scrambled in and the other fried flat.

     For seasoning, there were a few crumbs of feta cheese and olive oil on the veggies, plus chives, parsley, cilantro (not to everyone's taste -- if you have never had it, check before using! It's a genetic thing), dehydrated celery and fresh-ground black pepper.  Remarkably good for something thrown together from what I had in the fridge.

Living In The Future

     In my kitchen is a robot, provided by and controlled by a vast commercial empire engaged in everything from selling shoes to building and flying manned spacecraft. This sophisticated artificial intelligence listens to everything I say, ready to respond immediately.

      I use it as a cooking timer.

I Had To Buy It

     Went looking for some rolling shelves to help me start to better organize my library and this showed up:

     Not quite what I was looking for, but the price was appealing -- and then there's the name!  Who wouldn't like better mental shelves?

On Borders And Walls

          Oh, it's a deep partisan divide; I get it.  I also got a Facebook message with a video of carefully-selected quotes from prominent Democrat politicians on the need for secure borders and immigration control, with a note to "share it far and wide."

     Right.  Because that's totally persuasive, in much the same way that Abraham Lincoln's thoughts on the primacy of labor over capital (look it up) would convert Republicans to Marxism.

     It's a partisan fight.  I'd like to tell you the issues matter, that past positions matter -- but they don't.  Party A has chosen a position,  Party B opposes it.  And vice versa.  If one side drinks Coke, the other side clamors for Pepsi -- or maybe 7Up, because it's more opposite.

     Personally, I am all for open borders, along with a complete lack of tax-funded, government run social services for everybody. Work or starve, and if you think there's a need for free hospitals or old-age insurance (etc.), you get together with a few thousand friends and roll your own.

     Those things aren't going to happen.  Conversely, I can see a strong border being touted as a humanitarian thing, keeping people from trying to cross in dangerous, desolate spots.  But in order for that to work, tourists, immigrants and refugees would have to be processed in a timely manner at the official border crossings, necessitating a huge increase in Federal workers.  You'd think the Democrats would be in favor of that -- quicker processing, more government jobs -- especially in light of their comments on the plight of workers affected by the current government shutdown and you'd think Republicans would be happy to work with them to get a big, serious wall, but remember paragraph three: it's a partisan fight.  It's not really about borders, walls, immigrants or refugees.  It's about picking a side.

     There's also a lot of vested interest in an off-the-books labor force, not covered by minimum-wage laws and afraid to complain about unsafe conditions.  The people who hire them are just about the only ones who benefit from the present situation and they stand the most to lose no matter which of the two sides wins. 

     I wonder just how much influence they wield?

Factions

     Yet again, a writer friend is deploring the divisiveness and factionalism in science fiction, especially at conventions.

     It's nothing new.  It goes back to the first WorldCon.  And it has always been a game that can only be lost.

     Don't believe me?  Read for yourself.

Writing

     Spent the morning working on a new story, trying to get the general idea on paper.  I have several in the works, but this one is something I'd been toying with and it took form.  The recent extrasolar visitor 'Oumuamua is far too good a fit to Far Edge reconnaissance patrols to pass up -- but it's too slow, tumbling, and years late.  What could have happened?

     That, you see, is a story.

Eclipse And Chill

     It's not going replace video-streaming-service and chill, but last night's eclipse probably would have gotten good Neilsen numbers, if the ratings service kept track of natural phenomena.

     Last night I napped a bit, then added a thick robe and sandals to my socks and sweatpants and Winter nightgown to go looking for the Moon, peering out windows until I realized a total eclipse was going to be pretty much overhead.  I stepped outside -- into air about nine degrees above zero -- and discovered high, thin clouds were making a rainbow ring around the moon, which was already showing an edge of the Earth's shadow.  I took a deep breath and realized I wasn't going to be able to stand outside long.  The cold air was overwhelming!

     The soles of thick sandals make good insulation and my toes didn't feel too cold.  Multiple warm layers kept my core comfortable but fingers and ears and the tip of my nose were well-chilled in only a few minutes looking.  I watched the rest of the eclipse on a handheld, warm in my bed.

     This morning, the air was clear and the Moon was exceptionally bright.  Temperatures are below zero at the official measuring points.  In town it may be above zero, but only barely.  

...Then They Came For The Coffee.

      Look, when it was just snail darters and polar bears, I worried, but not so much.  But now they're warning that wild coffee may be in trouble, and that's a whole different thing.

     We don't so much drink the wild stuff, and it's not quite as bad a dead-end as the banana,* but there are only two main branches of the coffee family we drink; all of the lovely different kinds are just little variations on one or the other, grown in different soils and conditions, roasted differently and occasionally specially sorted (Tanzanian peaberry) or passed through a civet cat (no, really).  The wild relatives are used to breed in resistance to disease or pests, or to get a different flavor.  The seeds don't store well, so you need places where the stuff grows wild.
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* There have only been two varieties of dessert banana sold in the U.S. and each one was essentially a cloned plant.  The Gros Michel was gone by the end of the 1950s, all but eliminated by Panama disease.  It was replaced by the Cavendish and if you're under 50 years old and haven't traveled, Cavendish may be the only dessert banana you have ever tasted.  Panama disease is going after Cavendish bananas now; there's a disease-resistant Gros Michel under development but you might bear in mind that the old song, "Yes, We Have No Bananas" refers to some of the earliest banana crop shortfalls in the 1920s -- and, perhaps, to the power of positive thinking!