There's a word for everything

pogonotrophy (po-guh-NAW-truh-fee) noun

The growing of a beard.

[From Greek pogon (beard) + -trophy (nourishment, growth).]

Pogonology is the study of beards and pogonotomy is a fancy word for shaving.

-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)

"Mr. Davis fixed his gaze on the red beard [and said], "Professor Flowers,
I must congratulate you on a fine example of pogonotrophy.'"
Richard J. Weiss and Duane R. Chartier; Fakebusters II: Scientific
Detection of Fakery in Art and Philately; World Scientific Publishing
Company; 2004.

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Outsourcing nature

The development of more efficient, environment-friendly goods just might be a lesson in futility, at least when it comes to certain so-called white goods. When producing an environment-friendly product, a manufacturer should conduct a life-cycle assessment (LCA) to determine the environmental impact of the product from cradle-to-grave. For white goods, like refrigerators, clothes washers and dryers and air conditioners (the big 3), as you can probably imagine, the potential environmental impact is considerable. Social pressure and the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) movement might push companies toward "greener" practices, and intensified media coverage of human influence on global climate change might encourage more consumers to actively seek out a more efficient fridge or maintain frugal A/C settings, the question still remains, "how buddy-buddy can a clothes dryer and a tree get?"

Maybe a better question is to ask the wind how it feels about us essentially outsourcing its job to a machine. My point is, no matter how efficient some items become, they won't be as environmentally friendly as that which nature has provided itself. But, try as we may, unless a product is actually beneficial to the environment, it is less "friendly" and more an opposing force than anything. When manufacturers conduct LCA analysis, they consider everything "from cradle", i.e. the extraction of raw materials from the ground, "to grave", i.e. the disassembly process or, more likely in most places, the landfill costs. All the while the wind blows and watches as we ignore one of its services, at no cost.

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.

Technology

Tuesday I got a new mobile phone and Thursday my new laptop arrived at work. Ooh, lots of new stuff!

I really liked my last mobile, but it didn't have much battery-life anymore and the vibration function had ceased working months ago. The new one I have now has all the new "bells and whistles", including an IC chip in the body of the phone that can be registered and used in lieu of a train pass on most lines in Tokyo. Not to mention that it has a music player, GPS navigator and one-seg TV, which means I can even record a program or a movie to watch on the 2.6 inch screen while on the train - the phone comes with courtesy headphones.

The second new machine in my life is the laptop at work, which was a long-time-coming. The last one slowed down to a snail's pace 2 or 3 weeks ago already, so that I was using two computers; one for mail and one for word processing and web access, constantly switching my LAN cable between the two machines and using USB memory back and forth. Now I have a new Dell Latitude (more bells and whistles) and spent an afternoon backing up my latest files and bookmarks, transferring everything over, setting up the mail client and network group, installing the printer drivers and 35(!) Windows updates. Now I just have to clear the info off the old computers and I should be all set to go.

I suppose getting new stuff requires a lot of time to set it all up and learn how it all works. These electronic devices used to be touted as time-saving machines, but now it is just becoming more and more obvious that they have nothing to do with time saving and more to do with introducing new capabilities and establishing higher quality-standards. I remember in India we all wrote our reports with pencil and paper (sometimes by candlelight even), not to mention letters home. That was ten years ago when dial up connections, telnet and then Netscape allowed for an amazing shift in communications. Ten years down the road and we are operating at 100 megabyte speeds. Even at the lower end of transmission speeds - anyone still counting in kilobytes - you might have to wait for a page to load, but this is a far cry from having to sign, seal and deliver a letter. I am certainly a tech convert, but I can appreciate how things have changed. For example, I was able to tap out this entire entry on my mobile phone using one hand (mostly my thumb actually) while standing on a crowded train!! ..ah, here's my stop (that was fast)! :)