Why Haven't I Posted Anything Recently?

For maybe the handful of you who actually have been reading this site and haven't pulled it out of your bookmarks list yet, I have to let you all know why I haven't hardly posted anything here. It hasn't been for lack of content, it hasn't been that nothing's going on in the world of the environment, climate change, sustainable living and so on.

It's because I need a JOB.

Short story, my day job is going away. I'm in I.T.. Not because of the economy, my employers and their client have made some business decisions to consolidate stuff back last fall (actually in August of 2008). The consolidator will be done by this coming August, but in the meantime, they will be laying off my co-workers. Four of them were laid off last month. My job might be next.

So I've been pounding the internets, the job sites, got myself more engaged in LinkedIn, Dice.com, and all the other usual suspects. This has been taking all my time (that, and watching Rachel Maddow every night).

SO I need another day job in order to keep me well fed, keep the electrons humming in my interwebs device, and post more useless crap here.

Well, gee, Duck, why don't you just blog for a living?

Good question. Actually, the numbers aren't that good. The median annual income for bloggers is about $200 and the mean annual income is only around $5000. But around 1 to 2% of bloggers are making a living AS bloggers.

Putting on my thinking cap, why not this: Maybe I somebody can hire me to blog. Yes, there are PAID bloggers, usually paid for by companies to promote a product or service. Or maybe I can get another I.T. "day job", so that I can spend my leisure time blogging with you folks.

Paid blogger? Well, you have to be a GOOD blogger even before being a PAID blogger, right?

True, dat. I don't have much of anything here yet. However, I can point to one of my earlier works, before blogging was called "blogging". It was just a collection of stories, some true, some highly modified, but somewhat truthful, and some made-up crap. It's still here at misterduck.net. I also have about nine years worth of posting articles at The Motley Fool under the pseudonym DuckyDuck.

So I have a large body of work, so folks can see how and what I write about.

But I could go with either that or finding another I.T. job.

How about this?: I will offer $500 to anyone who sets me up with a connection that turns into a full-time job for over $40,000. That's with either a blogging job, an I.T. job, or a job with an environmental organization.

Don't companies that want I.T. guys just want guys who work on nothing but I.T., no moonlighting or things that can interfere with the day job?

True. However, I had been keeping my day job completely separate from my blogging and other hobbies (writing letters to congressmen, recording music, putting Barbie clothes on hamsters....er....). So I have no problem doing this. If I get another I.T. job, I'll keep it separate and isolated from the blogging for fun.

So there you have it. $500 bucks. Just email me at duckyblog@verizon.net and I'll send you one of my resumes (I have multiple resumes tailored for different activities).

Any questions?

Yeah, how DO you find Barbie clothes that fit hamsters?

Geez......

Duck

Hydrogen or Clean Coal - which is the bigger sham?

This is just a forewarning, I'll be trying to put up an article on why hydrogen and clean coal are just kick-the-can-down-the-road shams that will do nothing to improve the environment, nor gain us anything substantially in energy independence.

Some Twit on Twitter, who supposedly is a "hydrogen specialist" got my attention, and asked me why I thought "hydrogen is a myth". I'll get into that.

Just a heads up.

EcoDuck

In Synch - Not the band, either

Look for another bunch of idiots to start pushing this load of crap upon the public, trying to prove human-caused climate change doesn't exist.:

"The climate is known to be variable and, in recent years, more scientific thought and research has been focused on the global temperature and how humanity might be influencing it.

However, a new study by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee could turn the climate change world upside down....

"But if we don't understand what is natural, I don't think we can say much about what the humans are doing. So our interest is to understand -- first the natural variability of climate -- and then take it from there. So we were very excited when we realized a lot of changes in the past century from warmer to cooler and then back to warmer were all natural," Tsonis said.

Tsonis said he thinks the current trend of steady or even cooling earth temps may last a couple of decades or until the next climate shift occurs.

I've already seen two places on the net so far today where well-known denier websites are publishing this as "truth", one of them the wackfest wattsupwiththat.com.

I emailed the folks at RealClimate.org and asked them what they thought and I got this back from Gavin Schmidt at GISS/NASA:

I guarantee that few of the people quoting this study have even read the
abstract, let alone the paper "http://www.uwm.edu/~kswanson/publications/2008GL037022_all.pdf"
, and have absolutely no idea what is being
discussed. A quick read is sufficient to discover that a) this is a
discussion about how the climate reacts to forcings, not whether it does,
and b) doesn't look at GCM output (and so can't really assess whether GCMs
are in some way deficient), and c) explcitly states that the authors
expect the long term trends to continue to warm. How this supports the
idea that GW is false is completely beyond my ken. It proves rather (once
again) that there are plenty of people who can type faster than they
think.

gavin

Another day, another bunch of idiots. Thanks to Gavin for clearing this up.

EcoDuck

Coming back

Okay, it's been too long. I promised I'd take a break and start working on something new and constructive, rather than combative and profane.

Besides, I'd rather write stuff to help folks understand that AGW (anthropogenic global warming) is indeed real.

I've been spending too much time on another community website, which shall remain nameless at the moment, wasting time trying to convince "the denier crowd" over to "our side".

First up, a denier posted an article earlier today that sounds fishy, but at least it's not provided by a well-known denier or a well-known ExxonMobil shill. Check this out, but let me know what you think.

Also, I hope to provide more info and links to other things that haven't been wallpapered all over the net. That's why you read blogs and stuff, to read stuff you don't see elsewhere, not parroting the same thing over and over.

Feel free to send me ideas or questions. Or if you don't know what to ask, I'll give you a topic to chomp on.: Although I believe AGW is real, I do not believe that this country or the world, for that matter, will come together to lower overall emissions and move to a 100% renewable resources world. So my main points will be on TOP of that, that is, just not burning coal and gas and oil is a good thing for several other reasons as well.

Time for a quick shout-out to "More Hip Than Hippie", I like listening to these two ladies. They live real lives, they drive mini-vans, they consume just like other, normal human beings without being horrendously preachy. Well, even if they WERE, I'd still listen to them.

More later!

Your humble servant.

EcoDuck

Change in format

What's going on?  I know I haven't posted in WEEKS.  Turns out that what I think I want to do is convert this blog into a more "rational" blog, one in which I can go back and post serious discussions without the fluff and naughty words.

I thought I'd be able to attract attention with the profanity, but that is not the case.  At least I thought I'd be able to get someone's attention and at least have at least ONE noisy argument.

Oh well.  I'll be coming back soon and revamping the blog with less profanity, but I'll still try and maintain the anger.  What I DON'T want to do, though, is copy everybody else's daily rants, like today's "lipstick on a pig" Palin rants.

I might reference them, but I don't want to duplicate everyone else's stuff.

I want to be different.

Different, but still noisy.

Duck

What happened?

Nothing much at this time, there hasn't been anyone doing anything fucking stupid this week so far on the environment, let alone all the hubbub last week on offshore drilling.

Just letting you know I didn't die or have black helicopters take me away....yet.


EcoDuck

ExxonMobil: Tillerson should have a rusty fencepost shoved up his ass

Again, the evil bastards at ExxonMobil had their day in court and managed to weasel out of more money they had to pay in the ExxonValdez lawsuit.

The damages were limited to $507 million. Well, FUCK, that's what maybe an infinitesimal fraction of Exxon's annual earnings?The damages were originally halved in 1994 from $5 billion to $2.5 billion, they say that each Alaskan would now get $15,000 instead of $75,000.

What is NOT mentioned is inflation. Now that $15,000 is only worth $10,417 in 1994 dollars. So ExxonMobil effectively raped them further by delaying paying the damages. Evil Fucktards of the scrotum-eating leeches of the world....Rex Tillerson should be boiled in his own oil and sodomized by a drilling rig.

EcoDuck