Finally finished "Guns, Germs, and Steel." This one was lent to me by Carol Johnson my Mother-In-Law. It was a very interesting and enlightening book. It is great when someone with a broad background can synthesize so much information into a coherent and compelling theory. His argument for geographic determinism as an explanation to technological differences in broad populations is very good. He totally refutes any issue of racial differences. (The fact that there is no such thing as multiple human races is a scientific fact as well, but not covered in this book. There is a genetic distinction to dog breeds; there is no genetic distinction to different human races. "Race" is a purely political term, variations within any human population are greater than the variations between differing populations.) The technological differences between different human populations are determined by the geography, climate, and native resources of the area combined with the laws of human cultural evolution. (When humans began to develop culture, the need for further genetic evolution was virtually removed.) The conclusions derived from history about ideal cultural conditions for technological advancement can be also be applied to government and commercial entities. There are some real patterns illustrated in the book that confirm the superiority of the divinely inspired United States Government system and the extremely successful Microsoft business organization. I really love this type of book which can draw such broadly applicable conclusions. Overall, I found it to be full of fun and fascinating facts and well worth the read.
We also moved the treadmill from the upstairs bedroom over the garage where I originally assembled it all the way down to the basement. Believe me, it was no simple feet. We have a little touch up painting to do now. But, after all the blood and sweat it is finally in place. Hopefully for a very long time. The second ordeal after getting it into the basement was to power it. Our home was built with only one power outlet in the basement into which we have plugged the chest freezer and the cable modem and network router. It was also clear that the same circuit is used for all the lighting in the basement and stairwell. So I check the breaker box (for some reason located on the outside of the house and it just happens to be pouring rain at that moment) and find the breaker for the basement light circuit which does indeed control that outlet as well. However, I also find a mysterious breaker labelled "basement plugs" which doesn't seem to turn off anything (hardly surprizing since there are no basement plugs). So, I take the front off the breaker panel and discover the secret method that was employed (and not explained to the insignificant homeowners. I still think that builders should be required to provide all home buyers with a complete set of blueprints so they know what the house looks like without having to tear it apart). There is a single cable going to the basement, but it is a 4 wire rather than a 3 wire cable. The black and white wires are used to power the "basement light" circuit and of course there is the bare copper ground, but there is also a red wire powered by the breaker labelled "basement plugs" and dead ending in the basement light switch box. Once that was discovered it was simple enough to extend this new circuit out to a power outlet for the treadmill in a convenient location (I actually had wiring, junction boxes and a spare outlet among the random junk I moved with). Well, now we are all set up except for the TV Micaela wants to somehow mount down there in front of the treadmill (if you're running in a basement you may as well watch your favorite movies).
