Azi m-am teleportat in timp cu sageata albastra, ne-am desprins de sine, am ajuns la warp speed (50 km/h) si ne-am dus in viitor. Nu aberez, am si dovada foto, si nu e trucata. Va arat si voua aceasta dovada a calatoriei mele.

Ceea ce e si mai ciudat, in viitor, in doomiipatrujnoo, Romania arata tot la fel. Asta inseamna ca nici pana la acea data nu o sa fie mai buna situatia aici?? Look, it’s the same:

Attention, listeners in the San Francisco Bay Area… join TV CONFIDENTIAL’s Ed Robertson, co-author of The Ethics of Star Trek, along with KOFY’s Brendan Moran as they host an eight-hour Star Trek marathon this Saturday, Oct. 17 on San Francisco independent station KOFY TV20 (cable channel 13 on most Bay Area systems) beginning at 4pm PT. It’s our way of celebrating the arrival of Star Trek: The Exhibition: Where Science Meets Science Fiction to the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California. The world’s most comprehensive collection of Star Trek artifacts, featuring more than 200 artifacts from all five Star Trek television series (including an authentic replica of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 from the original NBC series), this will be the only appearance of this fascinating exhibit in the San Francisco Bay Area.

To get you in the mood for the exhibit warp speed, KOFY will be airing eight of the best episodes of the original Star Trek series, including “Where No Man Has Gone Before” (the second pilot to the series, featuring guest star Sally Kellerman), the award-winning “The City on the Edge on Forever” (featuring guest star Joan Collins and written by legendary novelist and screenwriter Harlan Ellison) and “The Trouble with Tribbles,” arguably the most famous episode of the original Star Trek, featuring guest star William Schallert and written by Star Trek novelist and historian David Gerrold.

Ed Robertson
Co-Author, The Ethics of Star Trek
Co-Host, TV CONFIDENTIAL
Every night at 10pm ET, 7pm PT
Shokus Internet Radio
Every other Tuesday 11pm ET, 8pm PT
Share-a-Vision Radio, KSAV.org
www.tvconfidential.net
blog.tvconfidential.net
Also avaiable as a podcast via iTunes and FeedBurner

Sometimes it seems that we parents are running helter, skelter through life at break neck speed.  We are even approaching warp speed in our parenting styles.

Many times I have suggested that we stop, take a deep breath and just spend some time with our family.  After all, we wanted children so that we could love them and train them.  So here are some suggestions for spending time with your family.  None of these suggestions will cost a great deal of money but will certainly enhance your time together and not dent the budget greatly.

1. Grab a bat and ball and just go outside  and play.  If you are not particularly sports minded the kids will have a good laugh at your expense. Actually this will help them to feel comfortable with their own challenges in this area.
2. Grab a jigsaw puzzle and sit down together.  Even little ones enjoy building them and forming a picture.  It is just being together that counts.
3. Maybe cook a meal   There are many suitable recipes available on the net.  Just a little exploration will yield great results.
4. A picnic can also be fun.  On these occasions I personally prefer to take a kite just for the pleasure and exercise.
5. Watch a movie together but let them choose the title.  Break out the popcorn and soft drink, times like this are not meant to be healthy.

I hope you enjoy these five quick ideas to spend with your family.  If you are looking for products to help in this area I suggest you check out www.grandmastoyshop.com.au

Bonjour!

Well Brighton was much fun, thanks to everyone who came along, it was a top night. Twas very busy, very sweaty and very messy in the end.

I broke a string on the first song (what are the odds!?) but luckily Alfie’s old Larrikin Love band-mate Micko was on hand to change it for me, meaning there wasn’t too much shuffling of the set list. Speaking of the set-list, we played quite a few of the old songs from our first and second recording sessions at Platts Eyot. They went down well, as did the couple of new songs we played. Can’t wait to get the brand new songs out there live as well! Was great to see a few familiar faces from London too, with Nick from the most excellent band Fiction, amongst others, turning up.

Ben shot from the stage to the station like a thoroughbred to get the last train home like the true pro he is. I ended up on the beach, standing on a large box with stones in my trousers. Feeling like pebbledash, a few friends and I went to a party in Kemp Town; I took my wonderful bike (hercules-he’s a fold-up one) and my friend took a scooter. I love riding around Brighton late at night; I’m all swervy and speedy with two fingers up to lane discipline. Highway code? Never heard of it officer. We were there in no time. Warp Speed. Not sure where Alex and Alfie went but i heard Alfie woke up with Lambrini all over his face, so it must have been a good night. Lambrini boys just want to have fun…

It was the Labour party conference this weekend as well in sunny Brighton. It was a mild annoyance, yet somewhat heartening to see a gaggle of protesters shouting about something, with customary placards and thermos flasks in hand, outside the two 5 star hotels that had been commandeered by suits. Although I doubt they could hear them over the bubbling of their jazuzzis inside. I am evidently in the wrong line of work.

A good weekend in all, and one I hope we can repeat soon!

take care

Gaolers x

This is also an annoucement: Double Dude Studio is now working on Pordesign’s (authors of awesome, and I mean HEAD-BLOWS-UP LEVELS OF AWESOME Gusanos mods: ProMode and Gusanos III Arena) Warp Speed.

Anyway, here’s automatic rapidfire shotgun concept made by yours truly, Tmth. I’ve followed Coro’s tutorial on gun concept drawing from Massive Black. The first one was eventually chosen and I’ll be posting as the work proceeds.

Peter Weller

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension!

(often shortened to Buckaroo Banzai) is an American science fiction film that has reached cult film status. It was released in 1984, directed and produced by W. D. Richter, and concerns the efforts of the multi-talented Dr. Buckaroo Banzai (Peter Weller), a physicist, neurosurgeon, Samurai, rock musician, Jet Car driver, and comic book hero, to save the world by defeating a band of inter-dimensional aliens called Red Lectroids from Planet 10. The film is a cross between the action/adventure and science-fiction movie genres, and also includes elements of comedy, satire, and romance. It is also made to feel like one in a series of movies, by the use of ongoing allusions to other characters, adventures and events.

Tagline:  Beings from Another Dimension have invaded your world.

“The very oddest good movie in many a full moon,” Buckaroo Banzai combines “humor, imagination, a little oriental mysticism and a passel of sharp performances [into] very chic sci-fi” (Time)! Oscar(r) nominees* Peter Weller and John Lithgow team with Emmy(r) winners Ellen Barkin and Christopher Lloyd for a fiendishly clever, action-packed adventure in an outlandishworld you’ll want to visit again and again! Brilliant brain surgeon Banzai (Weller) just made scientific history. Shifting his Oscillation Overthruster into warp speed, he’s the first man ever to travel to the Eighth Dimension and come back sane! But when his sworn enemy, the demented Dr. Lizardo (Lithgow), devises a plot to steal the Overthruster and bring an evil army of aliens back to  destroy Earth, Buckaroo goes cranium to cranium with the madman in an extra-dimensional battle that could result in total annihilation of the universe! *1993: Short Film/Live Action, Partners (Weller); 1983: Supporting Actor, Terms Of Endearment (Lithgow)

Get the DVD!

Buckaroo Banzai was released on DVD on January 4, 2002. Entertainment Weekly gave the release a “B+” rating and wrote, “Fans will drool over the extras, including some illuminating deleted scenes (of particular note is an alternate opening detailing Buckaroo’s tragic childhood, featuring Jamie Lee Curtis as Banzai’s mother) and director W.D. Richter’s commentary, which reveals some colorful behind-the-scenes battles with studio execs”.   IGN gave the DVD their highest rating and was “thrilled by the special edition treatment that this landmark cult film has received at the hands of MGM. The video is great, the sound is great, there are tons of extras … Bottom line, if you’re a Buckaroo fan, this is the home video version you have been waiting for”.

Movie Poster 27x40

My second draft of the Enterprise-D. This time: At Warp.

OPINION By LEE DYE

May 13, 2009 —

Here’s the good news for all those “Star Trek” enthusiasts out there — a couple of physicists think they’ve figured out how to travel faster than the speed of light without breaking the laws of physics.

But here’s the bad news — we may have to sacrifice Jupiter to get there.

Gerald Cleaver, associate professor of physics at Baylor University, and his post-doctoral researcher, Richard Obousy, have combined some of the most elusive fields in physics, including string theory and general relativity, to concoct a scheme to move “Star Trek’s” warp speed a little closer to reality. Very little, that is.

The folks who produce the “Star Trek” flicks have never explained how the good ship Enterprise can speed through the universe faster than a beam of light. That minor achievement is necessary if humans are ever to explore the galaxy’s back yard, not to mention the distant reaches of the universe.

The only problem is Albert Einstein said it couldn’t be done.

“Objects that have mass cannot travel at the speed of light,” Cleaver said in an interview. According to Einstein’s famous equation, “as an object travels faster and faster, its mass increases,” he added. “As an object approaches the speed of light its mass becomes infinite.”

‘Warp Bubble’ Needed for Interstellar Travel

In other words, a speck of dust traveling at the speed of light would have infinite mass, and it would take an infinite amount of energy to get it moving anywhere near that fast. So that pretty well knocks humans off the passenger list on the Starship Enterprise.

Not so fast, say Cleaver and Obousy, who have expanded upon a theory first proposed in 1994 by Michael Alcubierre, a Mexican physicist. Never mind warp drive, Alcubierre declared, what we really need for interstellar travel is a warp bubble. Alcubierre theorized that mass may be limited by Einstein’s calculations, but that doesn’t necessarily apply to space.

It might be possible, the Baylor researchers contend, to expand space behind a vehicle, say the Enterprise, and shrink space in front of it, thereby creating a bubble that could move through Einstein’s space-time fabric at speeds much greater than the speed of light.

Surfing a Wave, Space-Time Style

The craft would ride inside the bubble as the bubble moved through space, but the craft itself would remain stationary, thus avoiding that little problem suggested by Einstein. Cleaver, who earned his doctorate at the California Institute of Technology, in the heart of surfing country, likens it to “surfing a wave.”

But how does one create such a bubble? At this point, the story gets a little complicated.

The universe, which includes all sorts of stuff with mass, is itself expanding at speeds greater than the speed of light. We’ve known that since the 1970s, Cleaver said.

A fraction of a second after the Big Bang, the universe began expanding faster than the speed of light “in a very, very short time because if it had not we would not have seen the overall very, very uniform temperature cross the universe in all directions.”

Throwing in a little string theory (the current rage among physicists who are searching for a reliable theory of everything) Cleaver said the universe “grew from something a billionth of a trillionth the size of the nucleus of an atom to about the size of a basketball,” during its first second. “When it did that, space itself was expanding faster than the speed of light.”

Replicating the Early Seconds of the Universe

Cleaver, who studied under the legendary John Schwartz at Caltech, a leader in string theory, postulated that it might be possible to partially replicate that early second by manipulating positive and negative dark energy, believed to be the driving forces behind the expansion of the universe.

Put positive energy behind the spacecraft, and negative energy in front of the spacecraft, and that should propel the craft along at warp speed.

“Space in front of the ship is shrinking faster than the speed of light, and behind it, space is expanding faster than the speed of light,” and that should push the bubble along with the ship inside, “just like riding a wave.”

But how do you do that? Not all the answers are in yet, but the Baylor pair theorizes that with enough energy, it might be possible to alter the 11th dimension, a key part of string theory, which maintains that there are far more than the three dimensions we common folk see on earth.

Converting Jupiter Into Energy?

With enough energy, the “space-time dimension” in front of and behind the Starship Enterprise could at least start the bubble on its way, Cleaver suggested.

“The initial energy required would be on a par with the total mass of Jupiter,” he said. “If you could convert Jupiter into energy,” the bubble could be launched.

But it would probably require much more energy to stabilize the system and keep the bubble moving toward an infinite number of other universes, according to string theory, that are so far away their light has not reached us yet, and thus cannot be seen.

Cleaver admits he doesn’t expect to see that happen.

“This is purely a theoretical discussion of how the Alcubierre effect could theoretically be achieved through string theory,” he said.

But there’s a few more problems. Scientists are at odds with each other over whether string theory should even be considered science.

Many maintain that the theory cannot be proved, or disproved, as far as is known, so it isn’t science. Others hold out hope that some very expensive machines in the future may verify, or debunk, the theory.

So the Starship Enterprise is coasting through very thin air, to say the least. Even if it could travel at near the speed of light, it would take more than four years to reach the nearest star beyond our solar system, and hundreds of years to reach very many stars that could have planets with life.

But “Star Trek” is a movie, after all. It doesn’t have to be based on facts. Besides, how many Jupiters can we spare?

To honour the release of the reboot of the Star Trek film series, here’s a story about two Baylor University students, Obousy and Cleaver, who have an idea that they think might make faster-than-light travel possible. This is all just conjecture and speculation right now, but there’s some fascinating science behind it.

First off, they suppose that string theory is correct. This is a bit of a leap since we haven’t been able to test string theory yet, but it is a set of working models that unifies electromagnetism and gravity, and relativity and quantum mechanics. Fair enough. More specifically, they suppose that the 11-dimensional M-theory is correct. These higher-dimensional theories are usually explained as compatible with our experience by appealing to the notion that the “curvature” of the dimensions beyond the four we experience (3D+time) are “curled up” too tightly for us to detect.

Obousy and Cleaver speculate that massive amounts of energy might be used to manipulate the radius of curvature of that 11th spacetime dimension. If you could adjust that in a “bubble” around a spacecraft you could create a differential that would have the effect of propelling the craft forward.

The craft in this case would not be moving through spacetime: you’d be manipulating spacetime around it. This would free the craft from the constraints of relativity, they say, which require an infinite amount of energy to accelerate an object past light speed. But the end result would be getting a craft from one place to the other faster than light could do the same trip: warp speed, in Star Trek terminology. And while it would, by Obousy and Cleaver’s conjecture, require a finite amount of energy it would still be a large amount (i.e., converting the mass of Jupiter into energy).

Once again that’s all pretty far-out thinking, but it’s thinking that I find to be exeptionally cool.

Image from flo21 via Creative Commons license

Watch the Villareal “Multiverse” National Gallery of Art, Washington DC and imagine you’re reliving your childhood dreams of cruising in the Millenium Falcon.  Pretty, pretty lights….41,000 pretty, pretty lights to be exact.

Via Gizmodo

Things are changing fast and and even change isn’t what it used to be!

Consider these factoids from a youtube video called Did you know? 2008.

• China will soon be the country with the most English speakers.
• The 25% with the highest IQs are greater than the number of North Americans
• The top 10 in demand jobs in 2010 didn’t exist in 2004
• New technical info doubles every two years. By the end of year three of a four year technical course, half of what you learned in year one  isirrelevant
• Kids in school are looking at a job that doesn’t yet exist, that will use technologies that don’t yet exist to solve problems no one recognizes yet as problems
• Nintendo invested over $140 million in Research and Innovation in 2002; the US Dept of Education spent less than half that
• A weeks worth of the NY Times contains more information than a person in the 18th century would have been exposed to in a lifetime
• If MySpace was a country it would be the world’s 11th largest, between Japan and Mexico
• The average myspace page is visited 30 times a day
• There are 2.7 billion google searches monthly
• More text messages are sent daily than there are people on the planet
• Three thousand new books are published daily
• More unique new info will be produced this year than was in last five thousand years
• Radio took 38 years to reach a market audience of 50 million; Facebook took only two

But the biggest change isn’t one they mentioned and it’s this one: while the cyber world is exploding, the physical world is depleting.

This one stands out for me like a streaking meteor in a night sky. In the opinion of the best minds we have and the best studies, our current way of life is not unsustainable. We’re using resources more quickly than they’re being replaced. Unsustainable means that they will fail on the present track.

How do we become masters of our future, or at least responsible to it, under these conditions?

Do we try and make the old way work (after all it’s worked before), or do we prepare for radical change and our part in it?

I’m all for the change myself, as best as I can.

Here are some general tendencies that the choice for change when even change is changing – subject to revision of course!

• Stay small and local. A community of friends will do you better than a fortress. 30 friends will do you better than 30 guns.
• Don’t spend your time creating things that people can steal; rather share things and have less that others want.
• Make your life be more about flow than about grow.
• Don’t flaunt wealth or live for it.
• Have a useful skill or two or three. Know how to make local power, pickles, wine or beer, grow something, or sharpen saws. Have a value in the new economy. Realize that education doesn’t necessarily come in university but in new and unknown ways.

And the big one behind all that: do what you can in the form of personal practice to to step up to this challenge, to enjoy it and make it work for you.

We’re living in one of the most dynamic changes in history; it’s  already an amazing ride!

I can feel it.  The tide is turning.  My sexuality is beginning to go into warp speed again.  The timing couldn’t be better either.  Right about the time my son entered full time school over the summer, I began to get a feel for myself again.  How things used to be before I had the life sucked out of me from 24/7 toddler overdrive.  My son is like a bull on speed.  He has so much energy and is so much like me that it was often like we were locking horns at every turn and he was just literally squeezing every last drop of energy I had out of me.

I had no energy left for myself.  I wasn’t interested in sex, I didn’t want to masturbate, I didn’t want to be touched.  It was awful.  Thankfully, my Husband stuck by me.  I know he was impatient.  He showed it often.  I suppose I would too if he were turning me down that much for that long.  I gave in as much as I possibly could, but it did have to be on my terms.  Ugggh.  Yuck.  I’m glad that’s over!

My son went to school and I went to Florida.  It was a much needed trip.  The first 1/2 of it was a business trip, but there was a lot of partying with the ladies going on.  We would be up till 2 am most days drinking 8 or 9 drinks a night.  The last 1/2 was just me in Clearwater Beach, Florida.  I drank there too, but not too much.  I just spent time with myself for once.  Nobody else to worry about or care about.  I had no schedule, except to make the shuttle to and from the beach.  I did what I wanted, when I wanted and with NOBODY!  It was great.

I came home and my libido started to come back.  I think the fact that my son was in school and I had taken some time for myself had really helped me in that respect.  But it kind of plateaued.

Then I had my 35th birthday… and like a magic switch had been turned on, my libido began to increase.  It hasn’t really stopped either.  I’m wanting sex… all sorts of sex.  I want it often.  It’s still on the rise.  I’m entering my prime, this is about the age where a woman does enter the prime of her sexuality, and I think this is it.

I’ve had a sexuality that ebbed and flowed my entire life.  And when it flows, it gushes.  I’m telling you, I’m insatiable when I’m in warp drive sexual state.  And I’m almost there.  I can feel it.  I think about it all the time.  I want it all the time.  My kink desires need fulfilling and I have a deep need for sex sex sex!!!

The secret is out…..Kirk’s Dad was a “Trekkie”! This is one of the fascinating things we learned about Kirk when he came into the winery to get his hands dirty. He told us he was named after Captain James T and we were all very impressed!

More impressive was how quickly he adapted to the winery environment. There are certainly some comparisons that can be drawn between cooking and winemaking but most noticeable to me was the discipline for tidiness and cleanliness. He was quick to replace any equipment, hoses, buckets after using (and cleaning) them…very helpful. So, as a reward we allowed him to “drop” a fermenter. This is transferring the fermented must/pomace to the press at the completion of a red ferment. We do this by draining the free-run wine from the skins and using it to ‘wash’ the remaining skins into the press.

Cap'n Kirk at the helm..."beam me up Scotty"

He likes to talk our Kirk. I guess he is telling the girls how we really should do this, or how to cook paella or tamales or burritos or duck confit……..

Give me warp speed Mr Sulu!

May the force be with you Kirk )

With a nod to Samuel Delany. Here’s a feed straight from the NYT, The Animated Life that is beautiful. And inspiring. Kind of like Warp Speed all warped….What does it remind you of?

Fly by Night

Enjoy

…a cat or two.

Not so long ago, I pulled the trigger on an old friend. He was my first, and for a long time only, av in sl.

“Meh,” you’ll say. “So what?” Oh, I dunno. I’ll tell you if you stick around.

One of my first friends in sl was always counseling me. She would say things like, “This is a game. Ya gotta compartmentalize. Keep it separate from rl.” That seemed like good advice. I followed it for a while. For several months. Which is like nineteen years in sl, as many of you know.

My life in the metaverse was an extended sequence of playing different personalities through the same av. Sort of. I mean, I never committed to one or the other of those personae to the degree that a good roleplayer would have. I became aware after 194 days that I was becoming more an observer of potential selves than I was an actualized entity in the metaverse.

Attempting to play a role, I existed untrue to myself. I created and maintained myself as a ghost. A person who fades in and out of view, whom you can see, but can’t really touch.

I hate that. Passionately. Fuckin’ passionately.

Why do I hate it so much? Because it’s fundamentally dishonest. It’s not really what I want. And yet I chose to live like that. And you know why I really hate it? Because I realized that this is too much the way I live irl. I’m walking through my days mostly masked to myself. What am I really? Sl has shown me that I know a lot less about that than I want to believe.

I do love that, now. That crazy ability sl has to bring shit like that into focus.

“Why pretend to be something other than what you are? Why are you doing that?” Fear. Fear of rejection in a cold arena. Fear of not being cool. Fear of being completely irrelevant. A ghost driven to being a ghost by the fear of being a ghost.

Anyway, I murdered my av. ‘Twas a justifiable felicide. I thought I might attempt a resurrection, but I don’t think so now. Better to let dead cats rot.

So, what now? I can live in the metaverse, but not on my old and scared terms. I will be walking a different way now. I will be in sl what I really am, and not make apologies for that. Because one other thing I learned in sl (which really is a most excellent teacher) is that rejection happens. All the time. And it hurts. But not nearly so much as the feelings that come with trying to be what you’re not.

Being a ghost hurts worst. From now on, I’m resolved to be solid.

*chortle*

I love this post. Really.

SLove? I’m not sure I’ll routinely use the term, but my friend gets at something essential about sl.

Everything happens in sl, as Cindy’s commenter Benson so aptly puts it, in ant years. That is so true. The accelerated nature of the experience is part of what makes the word, and feelings associated with it, pop into our sl relationships so fast. Ain’t be too much time to reflect.

That sort of thing happens in rl too, but not as frequently or as fast. But I still think it’s love. I mean, what I mean by love. It’s no less so because it’s fleeting, or because, like everything else in sl, it’s going at warp speed, and therefore has a really short evolutionary cycle.

If we’re friends in sl, I’ll still say I love you after we’ve known each other for the relative eternity of 4 months. It might mean something different than it did when I first had the thought of it. It might have evolved from a not-very-successfully disguised infatuation to a good friendship. Heck, it might be slove (which, disturbingly, makes me think of Sammy Hagar), but whatever it is, I’ll claim it. It’s on the love continuum.

I want the best for the ones I love, whatever that best may be, and I’ll do whatever I can to see that happen. At least, I’ll wish for it.

Life is whizzing by at warp speed.

It’s a car that zooms down the street, glimpsed only in the peripheral.

It’s a view of the world from the seat of a swinging tire, pushed round and round.

It’s existence within an Impressionist painting that refuses to be still.

All encounters, images, moments are but a blur of memory, the edges frayed, the shapes strangely stretched, streaks of colours bleeding one into another.

I’m dizzy from all this unfocused movement, overwhelmed by the speed with which the days come and go, its inevitability, like a fistful of grasped sand slipping between the cracks of one’s hand.

By Farnaz Javid and Ann Varney
ABC News
First published on the web: August 14, 2007

Whether it’s driving while talking on your cell phone, sending e-mails during a business meeting or listening to music while you’re working, it seems multitasking has become a way of life.

Employers, parents, even kids are trying to get more done in less time.

But, does multitasking really make you more efficient? And what happens to your brain when you’re trying to complete two important tasks at once?

Read the rest at:
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Story?id=3474058&page=1

Our Related Essay from 2003!

We Could be Moving Too Fast

By John E. Carey
Fist Published in The Washington Times
August 8, 2003

A friend commented to me yesterday on the hectic nature and “rat race” of American life.  I was reminded of a piece I did for The Washington Times a few years ago.  It needed no dusting off.  We are still moving too fast.

For a long time I’ve suspected American society moved just too fast.  Recently a kindergarten teacher confirmed my suspicion. When I recounted happy memories about my own kindergarten experience, including “nap time,” the teacher told me: “There isn’t time for a nap anymore. We are getting these kids ready for life.”

Now I understand why my generation is such a failure. Too much nap time.

The telephone may also be an indicator we are rushing toward unhappiness and stress. Ever hear anyone say, “Gotta get the other phone. Sorry.  I’ll call you back”?

Another favorite conversation killer is, “We’re real busy here. Gotta go. Bye.” Not only are these communications rude and grammatically incorrect, they indicate a warp speed psychology in American life.

And cell phones, fortunately, are everywhere; allowing us to multiplex our minds and our lives. Cell phoning while driving. Cell phoning while eating. Talking on the cell phone at a wedding. I’ve even recently observed fast food restaurant guests talking to each other across the table on their cell phones. Do we really need to communicate this much? Are we discussing Plato or the meaning of life? Not usually. We are often scheduling more work, explaining why we are late, or just wasting time and space on the frequency band.

We drive way too fast. Even while going to work, people cut in and out of lanes at a breathtaking pace. Are they late or can’t they wait to get to work? One wonders. A recent survey reported the average American driver admits he takes dangerous risks behind the wheel to save precious time.

In suburbia the soccer Moms and Dads are notoriously overworked and on the run. The kids’ schedules drive everyday life and especially the weekends. Soccer, ballet, Girl Scouts, Little League, the amusement park, trips to the mall and other activities mean some families have more than one SUV to handle the workload of transporting preteens to everything and everywhere. Kids have even been known to suffer nervous breakdowns because they are so overscheduled.

My best suburban family of friends recently drove three hours to a one-hour wedding and then three hours back so they could get to the next scheduled event.

We are in such a hurry to pack more into life that TV sitcom writers have added many more pages of additional script for a single episode than ever before. Fortunately, the robotlike actors can speak faster than my VCR [we can now update this to a CD Player] on fast forward. This, of course, also means our kids (not robots, these) now utter every sentence as if the house were on fire and they were making the 911 call. And the speed-talking on TV allows more life-enhancing commercials.

So if we didn’t go this fast what would we miss? Or stated another way – why are we doing this and is it sane, normal and healthy? Does this life at the speed of sound give us better “quality of life?” More “family time?” More vacation? More money? Time to read a book? In most families, none of the above.

Usually we are just competing with other speed demons. Psychological pressure grows when we fear we can’t keep pace and can’t compete. Experts say the average white-collar worker fears for his job if he takes more than a week or two off at one stretch. This results in speedy weekend vacations with lots of driving and not much rest. Suburban parents often tell me little Judy or Tommy won’t get into the best middle school if he doesn’t pack more into “the early grades.” No nap time for you slackers.

Statistics do not confirm that all this rushing into, during and after school is building a generation of American geniuses. On the contrary, the school systems and cultural ways of life in several other nations are beating our pants off. And one of the best compensated team of teachers and school officials is right here in our nation’s capital. They also have some of the most embarrassing statistics on educating students. But this may not be due to trying to pack more quality education into the day.

Family life isn’t much improved either, surveys and statistics tell us. Families are more fractured, and a generation of single parents has exploded onto the scene and become an acceptable part of the norm.

Married people say they are “too busy” to have children.  They are too busy to stay married also because fewer than one-half of our marriage age population is married.  Most are divorced or living together.

And working quickly is not the same as efficiency. My favorite lawyer takes on too much work then tries to work faster, harder, later. Then he’ll make a silly mistake in an easy correspondence. He’ll make up for it the next time by writing a skilled, researched masterpiece. But trust me, there is another mistake out there soon.

Do we get more vacation time? Not compared to just about any European. The legally mandated vacation time in Sweden is 32 days per year. If you live in Denmark, France, Austria or Spain you get 30 days off by law. The Japanese get 25 vacation days annually. Even in China, the workers get a longer vacation than you: 21 days.

The Germans are the most widely traveled and well-compensated with vacation time of any people in the world. Most get 30 days off, but some get up to 48. And Paris shuts down and empties out for a month in the summer because everyone goes on vacation.

Well, Paris has more open stores and restaurants these days because lots of Americans are there for a few days in summer (maybe even a whopping week). The French keep Paris open on a limited basis during vacation season these days just to be rude to Americans and take their money.

Do we get longer vacations? The average Italian vacation is 42 days. How long was your last big one?