Carbon clock

Via George Monbiot, here is a counter that estimates the accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere. Monbiot writes (emphasis mine):

The carbon clock suggests that the cumulative total of long-lived greenhouse gases in the atmosphere so far is 3.64tn metric tonnes, carbon dioxide equivalent. It is rising by 2bn tonnes a month. To have a good chance of stopping at the all-important temperature barrier, we need to produce, across the remainder of human history, not much more than a quarter of the total accumulation so far. In other words, no more than 500 months (42 years) of current production. The clock must stop at 4.6tn. There’s our challenge in stark numbers. Sobering to have it spelt out.

Rational Management

“To administer a social organization according to purely technical criteria of rationality is irrational, because it ignores the nonrational aspects of social conduct.”

Peter Blau

Spanish books in Toronto!

For years I’d been searching for a copy of Janusz Glowacki’s Antigone in New York, a play I performed back in Mexico. I couldn’t find it anywhere: big bookstores, small bookstores, online, in Canada, in the United States –nowhere. Until a friend of mine told me about Theatre Books, a little store specializing in screenplays and scripts that happens to be two blocks away from my apartment. It was right there under my nose, but I didn’t even know it existed. They had the book in stock.

More recently I’ve been hunting for books by Roberto Bolaño, in their original Spanish. Again, I couldn’t find them anywhere. Online, I learned about a Spanish bookstore in New York, but it had closed before I could visit it. So when my sister, who is visiting from Mexico, asked me if she could bring anything for me, I requested as many books by Bolaño as she could find in our hometown of León. She brought several and made me happy.

Today I was showing her around town. We went to the Annex and I thought of walking further west into Koreatown, an area I don’t frequent much. That’s where we found it: Spanish Books, a nice little bookstore specializing (you guessed it) on books in Spanish. Just a couple of blocks after Honest Ed’s. I couldn’t believe it. I asked the seller when had they opened; he told me the store had been around for 12 years. Twelve years, again right under my nose, and I’d never seen it or heard about it. And if I hand’t been showing my sister around I would still not know about it.

They had a bunch of Bolaño books too (fortunately none but one of those that my sister brought with her) and I walked out with all of them.

Now I’m just wondering about other fabulous bookstores within walking distance of my apartment that I simply haven’t discovered yet.

(The store is moving, by the way. In a couple of weeks you’ll find them on Bathurst, a block and a half north of Bloor. It’s a bit expensive but it’s worth it. They also do requests.)

We do not study software engineering

The term “Software Engineering” is flawed, according to Neil Ernst, and I agree completely: it is a metaphor that conveys all sorts of incorrect connotations about the diverse and complex nature of software development. I don’t use it anymore if I can avoid it, and neither should you.