10 Thoughts for June 2, 2014

1. 4:25 am on the bike, at a 4-way stop.  After I made a full stop, to my left a street sweeper came to a full stop, and I started to go through the intersection.  To my right, a garbage truck ignored the stop sign and rolled through it in a right-turn, nearly plowing into me.  Me being defensive, I anticipated a collision and swerved while braking to avoid him.  Then, as he follows me up the street, he squeezes me rather than give me wide leeway.  Pure asshole.  I thought about calling the police on his two moving violations, but I didn't.
2. 4:33 am on the bike, stopped at a light, I looked up and saw the International Space Station fly over.  It pays to look up in the sky when stopped.
3. Ordered this bike helmet last week, while it was still a weekly special at REI.  The price had actually gone up, but because it was stuck in my cart, the lower price ($39) was honored.  I'd been tracking the price at Amazon for over a month, and this beat the lowest price on Amazon.  I learned my lesson, that buying an one-size-fits-all helmet will make you look like you're sporting a heavy duty motorcycle helmet. In my case, with a white helmet, it made many people react as though I were a police officer.  Quite humorous, really.
4. I get the sense that the annual US CES has been displaced by Taiwan's Computex as the most important tech show, aside from the annual corporate conferences (Google I|O, WWDC, etc.).  There are gazillions of new devices and form factors sporting various operating systems at this year's Computex, compared to the blah fare at this year's CES.
5. Speaking of WWDC, no stock price bounce for Apple.  
6. The EPA unveiled new plans to slash US CO2 output to 30% of 2005 levels, by 2030.  Last week it was predicted that the number was going to be just 17% of 2005 levels by 2020, which meant doing practically nothing to cut current CO2 output, as we were nearly there at ~16% below 2005.
7. So let's do a quick calc, shall we?  16% in 8 years is about 2% reduction per year.  Remaining 26 years, at 14% reduction is about 0.54% reduction per year, going forward.  Hmm.
8. I suggest ignoring the Chamber of Commerce's announced study that new regulations will cost $50B a year in lower GDP.  To start with, it's just a cost analysis, not a cost-benefit analysis like the EPA's 650+ page study.  (You'd never analyze the cost of building a new office building without also examining the income benefits, right?)  Also, the study was based on NRDC's proposal which had much higher targets of CO2 cuts (42%) than what the EPA proposed; after all, there's no way they could have released their study of costs, moments after the EPA released its 650+ page report.  It's true, I learned how to speed read, but 650+ pages in seconds is impossible.
9. Last week, Google unveiled its own, designed from the ground-up, automatic driving car.  Sure enough, cynics showered their critique of Google's work, around the net.  If we allowed cynics to lead us, we'd still be stuck with stone wheels and Fred's two feet.
10. Republicans can't seem to bring themselves to say out loud and straight up: We think Obama shouldn't have traded away 5 Taliban combatant prisoners for one American military personnel held captive the last 5 years.  They can't say that, because it would go against the US military's absolutist creed of "leave no man behind".  So instead they've gone on the air to question the legality of the move, the wisdom of the move and reintroduce questions over Bergdahl's capture.  Politics as usual.