Logos spoken here

Complexity leads to collapse?

"When the value of complexity turns negative, a society plagued by an inability to react remains as complex as ever, right up to the moment where it becomes suddenly and dramatically simpler, which is to say right up to the moment of collapse. Collapse is simply the last remaining method of simplification."

Read more about complexity here. Feel free to extrapolate metaphorically to all aspects of your life. Or read the book cited within the blog, Joseph Tainter's The Collapse of Complex Societies. 

Credit to On the public record for initially pointing me to it.  It sounds fascinating.

Front yard

The usual wildflower suspects. I'll need to clean it up shortly. Artichokes are located in the shade against the porch. They were a striking ormental plant but I've had problems with them falling over (after I made the mistake of pruning the lower leaves off, but who's to say they wouldn't have blown over anyway.)

Peach trees

Found in a used book

Weekend at Forest Lawn Scout Reservation

We're up here for a weekend winter camp. There's just enough snow for sledding, on the north sides of the hills.






- Posted at great expense from my iPhone

Spam :(

I use Hotmail for a main email account. They generally have good spam filtering on the incoming email. Unfortunately they don't do so well on outgoing.

"I" ended up sending spam. Out to my whole email list. I don't know how it happened, since I am quite careful and well aware of various net pitfalls.

I suspect that my son browsed to an unsafe site while I had an open Hotmail window. I was using Internet Explorer of course. Thank you, Bill Gates!

I ran a virus check (definitions were only 24H out of date on my previous scan less than 12 hours before), nonetheless I had to check. No virus found. Also changed my Hotmail password from a wired computer in case of wireless intercept. I use 128bit WEP, have IP-selective service, and my nearby neighbors are idiots by all indications, so a wireless intercept is unlikely. Still, you can't be too cautious.

I had used IE because certain people in my house don't seem to get Firefox with Noscript. Now they will have to learn to love it.